#no one talking about alinas face when no one has seen genya

[lingeringscars]

Genya is the one person who made alina feel safe and comfortable from the start. Alina wanted genya to stay with them, didn't understand why genya couldn't sit with her, literally looked for genya in every room she entered. They felt instantly at ease with genya and really connected to how they both don't fully belong and have a power no one else does.

[jomiddlemarch]

most precious to you

“Sasha, you’ve been in a black mood all day. What’s wrong?” Alina asked. He’d been curt throughout the morning, skipped luncheon, sequestered himself in the War Room until dinner and she’d had him in check in three moves in their regular evening shatranj match. Now, he stood at the window that overlooked the back gardens, though there wasn’t much to see on a moonless night except his own reflection.

“It’s nothing,” he said in a tone that was intended to be foreboding, forestalling any further question. She snorted and set down the book she’d been leafing through, unable to lose herself in it when he was so clearly bothered.

“Like Djel it is,” she said.

“Now you curse in Fjerdan?” he replied.

“If that’s what it takes to get you to talk. I’ll speak in tongues if I have to,” she said. “A trouble shared is a trouble halved, you know the old saying.”

“I created that saying,” he said. “They don’t all catch on, but that one did.”

“So, you believed it once,” she said. She waited. He could need that, a significant pause to demonstrate she would not leave, nor nag, patient when he challenged her, not goading him nor demeaning him for any expression of distress.

“I had a vision or a dream, I don’t know,” he said. “It doesn’t signify—"

“It upset you,” she said. “It matters.”

“We were together and apart, you wore a blue kefta,” he said, as if he were remembering it. As if he saw it again in the pane of glass before him. “Blue and not black. You were angry—”

He broke off, made some small gesture with his hand, though no shadows shifted in the room.

“Is that all there was?” she said.

“You and the boy,” he said.

“What boy?” She spent time with the younglings, but she had no favorite among them, and though she had hopes for the future, they had not spoken of children lately.

“The tracker, the one from your home,” Aleksander said.

“Mal?” she said, taken aback.

“Yes, him. You and he, there was a moment, I’d seen your face before like that, but not so far away,” he said, making the barest sense.

“A moment? You mean something happened between us, between Mal and me and that’s what upset you,” Alina said.

“You kissed him and he held you,” he said, as bleak as if it had happened. “You didn’t pull away—”

“Sashenka, it wasn’t real,” she said. “Whether it was a vision or a dream, a bloody nightmare, it wasn’t real. I didn’t kiss him and I wouldn’t. I mean, I suppose I might give him a peck on the cheek if I were saying goodbye but nothing more. I don’t feel that way about him—”

“You did,” he said. “There was truth in it, what I saw. A logic. Inescapable.”

“Well, now you’re positively talking nonsense. Who ever heard of love following logic?” she said. It was time to halve the trouble, to cut through it with a knife, a blade so sharp one blow would suffice.

“Milaya, you are being kind,” he said.

“You are being foolish,” she said. “I saw Mal as my best friend when we were children. I was infatuated with him when he joined the First Army, like so many girls are infatuated with a soldier. When he came to the Little Palace, I saw him for what he was to me, the brother of my childhood, a fellow survivor of the orphanage. Which was never home. It was only where we slept at night. What you saw has never happened, will never happen. Not every vision is a foretelling and not every dream is a memory recalled. Sometimes, we see what we’re afraid of and that’s all that it is, a fear that will never come true.”

“You don’t—you sound so sure,” he said and praise to Sankta Maradi, she could hear in his voice that he had listened to her. Believed her.

“Because I am,” she said. “Think about it—would Genya ever let me wear a blue kefta? She’s quite fierce about how little it suits me and how much finer the gold looks with my complexion.”

“Now you’re teasing me,” he said, but he walked back over to the bed and sat beside her.

“Maybe a little,” she said. “The blue is pretty, but it isn’t my color. And I feel a certain fondness for Mal, but that’s all. It’s nothing to how much I care for you and I’ll happily tell you that until you’re tired of hearing it.”

“Now you are being foolish,” he said, taking her hand in his and letting her feel the resonance of their power, the warmth of his palm against hers. “To think I could ever tire of that.”

[croptopscout]

Please stop beautifying mutilated characters

TW: major spoilers for the Shadow and Bone trilogy (post Siege & Storm/book 2) and minor spoilers for Sally Face

Very random rant about smth that’s been bothering me for a while.

Why can’t people just let “disfigured” (I looked for a different word that explains what exactly I mean and couldn’t find it, but I’m aware that it’s not okay to say that about someone, I’m just trying to express what I mean as specifically as possible) be “disfigured”???!!

I’m so tired of seeing people draw characters like Sal Fisher and Genya Safin as just pretty faces with a couple scars. Can we be for real for 2 fucking seconds? I don’t wanna put any of the fanart I’m talking about in this post because I don’t wanna call out any artist in particular, I’m sure most, if not all, mean well doing this, I just think it’s a little fucked.

Sal’s face was messed up when he was a kid. Canonically a whole piece of his jaw is missing. The cartilage of his nose is at least partially missing. He is not a pretty anime boy with a few lines on his face. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. That’s doesn’t make him a better or a worse person, it’s just a fact about his appearance. It says absolutely nothing about who he is but it is an important part of his character and definitely impacts his actions and personality.

When Alina first sees Genya after what happened to her, this is how she’s described (literally copied and pasted from the fucking book)

“It was not Baghra. I didn’t know what it was. The bites were everywhere, raised black ridges of flesh, twisting lumps of tissue that could never be healed, not by Grisha hand or by any other, the unmistakable marks of the nichevo’ya. Then I saw the faded flame of her hair, the lovely amber hue of her one remaining eye.”

She looks so different that Alina doesn’t recognize her. At first she describes her as a “what”, because that’s how affected her appearance was by that happened to her. So you’re gonna sit here and tell me that it’s perfectly sensible to draw her (post nichevo’ya) exactly the same as before but with a cute little eyepatch and a few lines over her face? Stop trying to beautify characters that have had accidents like this. They’re not conventionally pretty and that’s not a fucking character flaw.

I absolutely hate policing people’s art. Draw thin characters fat, give able bodied character disabilities if you want, make characters black or Asian or whatever you want, I’m all for representation, but please don’t erase this important part of who they are. Because it is an important part of who they are. It impacts so much of their lives in canon. And we can still love them exactly how they look. We should still love them exactly how they look, without trying to erase these horrible things that happened to them.

I chose to focus on these two characters in particular because they’re the ones I’ve seen this being done to the most, but this is true for any characters who have suffered through horrible things that heavily changed their appearance.

And before someone comments on this saying that it’s just fictional characters and all that bullshit, I’m well aware. I’m also well aware that this post is not gonna change jack shit and people are still gonna draw Genya and Sal and any other characters who don’t look “normal” as pretty, conventional faces and there’s nothing I can do about that. I have no intention of fighting with any artist that chooses to do this. I’m just asking that if you are one of the people who choose to erase these kind of physical characteristics about these characters, that you ask yourself why you feel the need to do it. If you like the character enough to want to draw them, why can’t you actually like them how they are? If you read all this and still don’t give a shit, good for you, that’s not my business. I just thought it was worth bringing this up.

Anyways, if anyone wants to actually have a discussion about this I’ll be happy to, this has just been bothering me for a long time and I felt like ranting about it. Hopefully at least one person actually stops to thinks because of this post. Maybe no one will. That’s okay.

If you have had an accident that left your appearance similar to one of these characters, I hope you can still see representation in them, no matter how their appearance is treated by the fandom, and I hope you know that you are worthy of love no matter what you look like.

[goblins-riddles-or-frocks]

do you have more nikolina fake engagement AU? plz

Sure!

AU several years down the line where the stag was never tracked down (no Mal 💖) and so the Darkling never showed his hand. Established secret Darklina relationship. Meanwhile there’s an arranged Nikolina betrothal that everyone’s having complicated feelings about lol

Part one | Part two | Part three | AO3 link

***

Alina wakes alone the next morning. The twinge of disappointment is truly silly: he always leaves her. It would be stupid not to. The last thing either of them needed was a maid to walk in on the two of them.

She lingers in bed now, remembering the winter fete. That very first night when he’d come to her. He’d spent so much time simply undressing her carefully unwrapping her like a gift. Taking account of every inch of her skin, touching and tasting until she’d been nearly delirious. And then he’d pushed her to the bed and finished what he’d started in that dark side room at the fete.

He’d avoided her for days after. It had hurt tremendously at the time. But she knows his way now, how he’d inevitably feel the need to get even for the simple crime of making him want.

Alina dresses swiftly and makes certain that there aren’t any lingering signs of the Darkling’s presence in her room and then she heads down for breakfast.

She’s surprised to run into Genya in the hall. Genya gives her a little box for her name day. A pretty blue.

Alina opens it then and there, too curious to wait.

“It’s from the Fabrikators workshop,” she says. “Try it at the summoners pavilion, avoid anything flammable.”

It’s a silver ring. Genya explains that if she twists it a certain way while summoning its pale clear gem will hone her light into something that burns. It isn’t quite the Cut, but it’s close. It’s a curiously dangerous gift but it could be useful.

Alina’s training with Baghra has mostly stalled, a touchy subject. Everyone had thought she would be that much more powerful. So unfortunately she does need every trick she can get her hands on.

She thanks her awkwardly. And wishes she knew how to say more but Genya nods and walks past. murmuring something about having to get back to the Tsaritsa.

Alina doesn’t remember how exactly they drifted apart, just that they started speaking to each other less and less. Sometimes they run into each other in the Grand Palace, or in the worse occasions when they’re both trapped in the Tsaritsa’s parlor at length, but they only exchange tight-lipped smiles. Maybe a polite greeting.

She goes down to the domed hall and pours herself tea. Zoya finds her immediately. Despite their earlier— and current— animosity, Zoya has made it a point to befriend her. Or well pantomime friendship. It only took several months of making her life hell before she seemed to consider that Alina might become too important to be enemies with. Or perhaps the Darkling simply gave her an ultimatum, she isn’t sure. Either way they usually both plaster smiles on their faces when they meet and pretend to enjoy each other’s company through meals, through a slew of barbed comments back and forth. She’s gotten better at the verbal sparring recently, not much better in the combat ring though. Zoya still bests her there.

Nikolai intercepts them on the way out though, all smiles and shameless flattery. He kisses her hand, and twirls her around as if he hasn’t seen her for a week. He apologizes for stealing Alina away but unfortunately he simply can’t bear to part with her for too long.

“You’re laying it on a bit thick aren’t you?” she says once they are out of earshot.

“Oh and here I thought that was charm.”

And she cannot help a laugh.

He leads her out to the lake. It’s still fairly quiet at this time of the morning. She’s noticed that he can never be still for very long. When he wants to talk he would much rather do it as they walk.

She doesn’t mind either, she’s content to follow along. And so she also lets him lead on the idle chatter of “How are you?” and “My head frankly still hurts very badly from one too many glasses of brandy but nothing fresh air won’t solve’ until he finally asks, “Fine perhaps I’m a little impatient, but I’m very curious if you've come to a decision?”

Alina suppresses a smile. She likes him. She isn’t sure if that’s a good thing or if it simply makes it harder to make a clear headed decision. But she does like him.

She had wanted to accept. She had been going to accept before she saw the Darkling. And even he had told her to accept, explicitly, even if it was for his own purposes. So truly, what is stopping her now? Sentiment? The worry that she’ll be tangled up in whatever he’s scheming?

She makes a show of sizing Nikolai up. “I’m still considering,” she says.

“Oh? What are you considering, particularly? I like to think that I have many virtues.”

“That you seem to be impulsive, irreverent, and fickle.”

He puts a hand to his heart. “I’m wounded.”

Alina snorts. “You like to be liked, Nikolai Lantsov. And I wonder if you’re only so interested all of a sudden because it irks you that someone might be so indifferent to marrying you. Are you just going to change your mind after you’ve had the attention for a few months? ‘Oh actually we should have a falling out after all, what do you say, lovely?’”

“Well now I think I am actually wounded. I do not sound like that.”

She shrugs. “I’ll work on my impression. But you did ask me what I was considering.”

“So what I’m hearing is that you require proof of my undying devotion.”

She raises an eyebrow. “If you’re already offering undying devotion I would simply call you a liar. But more or less. I want to know that you’re serious.”

“How can I achieve that?”

She’s silent a moment, thinking.“For a start, what do you do when you pretend you’re studying at Ketterdam?”

He gives her a sidelong look. “Is this going straight to the Darkling?”

“I can keep a secret.”

“Frankly, I’m not particularly convinced but why not?” He grins. “I’m only in Os Alta for three more days. Wait until then and I can simply show you.”

“I don’t think you can just carry me off.”

He shrugs. It’s a careless gesture. “It won’t have to be long. I’ll make sure you’re back safe.”

“You’re not taking me all the way to Kerch are you?” she asks dubiously.

“You’ll simply have to see! Consider it an experiment of trust.”

Alina rolls her eyes. “Fine. I can wait three days.”

“Excellent.”

***

She drags her feet on it. But on the evening of the third day, when she can wait no longer, she finds the Darkling in his study, and she carefully informs him of their outing, omitting the part about Nikolai promising to reveal whatever he’s been up to. She had said she would keep that secret.

She stands while he contemplates, feeling somewhat like a child waiting to be reprimanded.

“That’s fine,” he finally tells her so flatly that she cannot read anything but displeasure into it.

“I don’t have to go,” she says quickly.

He drums his fingers over the desk. “No, this is good, I think.”

“Okay...” She swallows.

He rises from his chair, circling around to where she stands. He takes her chin in hand, his gaze intent on hers. “What are you doing exactly, Alina?”

Her mouth goes dry. “What?”

“You’ve been running around the palace like lovestruck children.”

She frowns. “I don’t understand if you want me to go through with this or not. You told me to accept, which I haven’t yet—”

His lip twitches. “Is he aware you haven’t accepted? He doesn’t seem to be.”

“Yes he is,” she grouses. “I’ve made it very clear. But that’s beside the point, I’m keeping him close, like you wanted. And maybe eventually I’ll accept.”

“What are you waiting for?”

She purses her lips, unsure of the answer herself. “I just want to be certain.”

“Don’t take too long. You don’t want to alienate him either.”

She shrugs. “I think he might like a chase, to be honest.”

“I see.”

He kisses her then, hard, still gripping her chin. Her lips part in surprise and he takes the advantage. Overwhelming her as always. Her knees feel weak when he lets go. When he dismisses her just as quickly.

As she walks out in a daze she realizes she should’ve refused that kiss. That she really cannot and should not carry on like this if her enhancement might be real. Guilt twists in her stomach.

She wishes she still talked to Genya.

[thefandomtraveler]

Everything I liked about Shadow and Bone season 2 (warning: much comments about the crows + fangirling about the cast):

SPOILERS FOR SEASON 2!!!

- first off all the new characters are amazing, I'm in love with Nikolai, still not over how perfect Jack is as Wylan, and Tolya and Tamar were so god damn cool I can't

- also everyone looked so good

- loved the whole part where they were in Bhez Ju (and the story about Sankta Neyar)

- Freddy Carter I bow down to you that performance was amazing, seriously I couldn't picture a better kaz

- also Daisy was so good too, like I was crying everytime she was on screen

- and basically everyone else, I'm so amazed by this whole cast, they really all brought these characters to life

- while wesper pining is like one of my favourite things in the books, i still really enjoyed what they did in the show

- just Wylan looking at Jesper like he is the only person that matters

- Jesper's reaction to Wylan playing piano had me smiling like an idiot

- AND THE KISS i gasped so loud... i was giggling and kicking my feet in the air and had to replay the scene

- also kanej was everything this season, we got so many scenes from the books and more (really glad they didn't kiss, though... netflix really had me worried at some points that it would happen)

- Nina Zenik was amazing the whole time, just her comments and looks whenever Kaz was being an idiot

- helnik had me in chokehold

- Kaz' reaction at wesper kissing was so funny (also not him cockblocking them in the morning, a really Kaz thing to do + Jesper's "No!" had me rolling)

- "I kinda like your face." just let me die here and now

- Tolya talking about poetry and him helping wesper

- Jesper realizing he HAS met Wylan before, only when he was LAYING ON TOP OF HIM... in the middle of a FIGHT

- Wylan talking about butterflies while everyone is dying, please he just wanted to tell Jesper they are so cute

- Jesper meeting his mother again I CRIED

- just Kaz' whole backstory, already hung on every page when I read it, my emotions were all over the place seeing it on screen

- Kaz talking to Pekka Rollins, just that whole performance deserves an Oscar thank you

- literally every fight scene

- first meeting of Nikolai and Kaz/Jesper (and Kaz figuring Nikolai out SO FAST and him side eyeing Jesper)

- Jesper calling Kaz his brother... this show wants me dead

- Nina and Inej friendship

- Jesper in a Kilt for like half of the season

- Nikolai revealing who he really is had me on the floor, i love that man so much (also Alina punching him in the face for keeping it a secret lol)

- Alina being a badass queen. That's it.

- felt so bad for Mal this season, my man was really going through it damn

- Ben Barnes' performance as the darkling was so good, but we already knew that

- Genya and David had my heart... I was already emotional every time they were on screen together but when Genya found the ruby and the scetch of the ring I was bawling my eyes out

- everytime Genya and Alina hugged

- Tamar and Nadia just being happy lesbians in the background, good for them (wish we would have seen more of them)

- just every Tolya and Tamar interaction (especially the hug when Tolya came back), also wished we could have seen more them

- Jesper hugging Inej and twirling her around (they are best friends i love them so much)

- the whole sequence of Alina and Mal at the end destroying the fold

- Matthias seeing the wolves and feeding them + the scene at the end where he doesn't fight against them and they stand next to him instead

- the difference between Nina telling everyone Matthias is the love of her life and him being in hellgate, having the worst time of his life, because he hates her but also really doesn't

- Inej killing the shadow monsters with the sword (what a queen)

- Zoya just being herself

- "And how will you have me?", that whole scene had me holding my breath....

- "I will have you without your armor, Kaz Brekker. Or I won't have you at all." screaming into my pillow

- Jesper shouting "That's my man!" when Wylan threw the bomb at the shadow monsters (+ him saying that they don't have to put a label on it just after realizing what he said)

- Jesper trying to figure out how to get things right with Wylan (and failing rip)

- Wylan and Jesper standing in the background holding eachother after they talk and make things right

- Wylan trying to hide the fact that he is the son of one of the richest man in Ketterdam

- and him trying to convince Kaz that it isn't Alby's fault, who his father is because Wylan knows how that feels

- Genya looking for David's heartbeat

- David telling Genya she does not need to be fixed

- Baghra casually breaking out of her prison, because really, what did Kirigan thought? Leaving her and Genya without a supervisor and assuming she would sit still in her cage... really wasn't his smartest move

- "Someday, someone is going to sweep you off your feet so hard, you won't know what hit you." / "I could fix him." I can't WAIT for Zoyalai (if we ever get another season)

- Jordie and little Kaz 🥺

- Nina getting waffles and Kaz giving her a look of pure confusion

- also their whole interaction at the tea shop

- Inej not being able to leave Kaz after him panicking

- Wylan telling the others he wants to know the plan too and then crossing his arms (i'm sorry babes all you do is looking adorable we need to work on that one)

- "You guard against pain. You guard against joy. But when you allow yourself to be blindsided by love... two hearts make a universe" her whole speech had me in tears

- Neyar and Jesper's talk about his powers and that he has a lot to catch up to

- over all him slowly accepting who he is and not wanting to hide anything (including Wylan)

- Wesper healthy communication is all I needed actually, they mean so much to me you don't understand

- Wylan and Jesper breaking into that landhouse and pretending to want to fix the piano

- Nina getting the information about the office so easily and Kaz being impressed (i love her)

- Wylan looking away whenever he smiles

- "What you did back there, made you a Crow" and "When was the last time you ate"... Kaz Brekker you aren't beating those dad crow allegations

- the moment when you think Nina actually betrayed Kaz but then realise it was the plan all along because obviously, it's Kaz Brekker

- Tolya and Nina bonding over food (mood)

- Wylan being so offended when Jepser calls him a total stranger (i'd be too tbf)

- "Are you worried about me Jesper Fahey?"

- the scene of Baghra and Kirigan where she sacrifices herself (I really like that this scene shows that there is still something human about the Darkling)

- "My demolitions expert." / "Expert? I mean, yes, expert." Never change Wylan

- Nikolai and Dominik bromance

- Tolya and Tamar knowing the other is there and alive by their necklaces

- Jesper embracing his grisha powers

- Inej and Zoya fighting together is something I didn't know I needed

- the five of crows joke

- the parallel of Matthias seeing Nina in the beginning of the season and ignoring her vs both of them screaming eachother's names while being dragged away at the end

- Mal and Nikolai just getting along and trusting eachother

- the teasers about Jurda Parem, the ice-court heist and Sankta Lizabeta

[herorps]

shadow and bone and racism

shadow and bone just came out so i can now finally break my silence bc holy shit do they go ham on the racism and me being me, i just have to tell you all about it. possible spoilers and triggers for anti-asian racism and microaggressions.

to preface, i was very privileged to receive a screener for the entire first season last month and i was actually excited to watch it bc i have friends who love the books and the show piqued my interest since it was announced. and i also have to say that i never read the books and i probably never will ( tho i’ve been told i would like soc ) but i did like the show overall. 

i think sab is a good adaptation and that the fans will like this show. i thoroughly enjoyed it and as someone who had very little to almost no knowledge about the books, i didn’t have trouble keeping up with the fantastical world. 

however that doesn’t mean i can’t be critical of it. 

i think the show can actually benefit from people being critical about it because so far, it feels like they took a very tone deaf direction and ran a marathon with it. 

what i’m talking about, is alina starkov being half-shu. 

now, i said before that my interest was piqued for this show when it was announced and one of the major reasons is the casting of biracial actress, jessie mei li, in the role of alina starkov. i can’t tell you how happy i was to see that a half-chinese actress was cast as the lead in a series based on such a beloved ip, especially since the creators of the show consciously changed alina’s ethnicity to be half-shu before casting calls were even sent out. ( for those of you who are also non-book readers, shu is the race of people from the country, shu han, and is based off primarily mongolian and chinese cultures ) 

so i was endeared with the idea that this character, that is coded white, was deliberately changed to be coded asian ( and coded mixed race to boot ) because the producers wanted to include diversity into the show. i commend that, i love that, i support that. but i believe the way they handled it, shouldn’t have been the way they handled it. and it’s because alina’s race is constantly brought up. 

obviously of course race is going to be brought up at some point. alina in the show is surrounded by white people when we first see her, and her home country of ravka does have a hostile history with shu han----i get it. racism is going to play a part in alina’s story. but it doesn’t necessarily need to go so far as to constantly remind the audience that she is shu in almost every interaction she has with someone she meets. 

and that’s a big part of the issue, is that nearly everyone she meets will bring up the fact that she’s part-shu. and a lot of the time, it’s said with hostility. now i’m not exactly sure if i’m just being particularly sensitive because of certain recent events, but the anti-asian racism hits differently these days. idk. 

because that’s what it is, at the end of the day. it’s racism. alina is often the target of very hostile racism and it seems to mainly be directed at her character and her character only. 

and honestly, on a surface level it makes sense, i sort of understand what the producers are trying to do. ravka has a turbulent history with shu han and were involved in wars with them and they’re often seen as the enemy so obviously that would affect a shu-mixed person growing up in ravka, a very white country. but on a deeper level, it reminds me a lot of the anti-japanese sentiments during wwii. the production team even created a banner that i felt called back to those anti-japanese propaganda of that era. ( mind you it was shown multiple times, in main focus, and acknowledged by characters that were coded shu ) 

but on the other hand, they’ve done a considerable job to diversify at least the ethnic makeup of ravka. there are black and brown grisha at the school and there are people of different cultures ( noted by costuming, etc. ) in ketterdam and there’s even a shu-appearing trainer that teaches the grisha to fight. so my question is, why is this very hostile treatment primarily geared toward shu people and geared toward alina specifically? it just doesn’t make sense to me. 

and when i say it’s specifically geared toward alina, i mean that it’s very apparent that they’re targeting her specifically, because mal  ( played by a possibly mixed-race archie renaux ) is also coded to be of mixed shu blood. while it is not explicitly stated that mal is shu, it is heavily implied that he is mixed, but he is never subject to the treatment that alina is, and the only times he is subject to racism is when alina is also present. in scenes where we see alina and mal as kids, they are often both referred to as “mutts” or “half-breeds”. but when they are older, only alina is continuously called those things. 

this isn’t even touching the microaggressions she faces after she’s at grisha school and this one line that made my gut wrench so viscerally i had to pause the episode and replay the part so i could confirm what i heard. [ episode 3 spoiler warning ] i’m trying to avoid posting screenshots or from spoiling parts of the show but there’s a scene where alina is being cleaned up and made presentable by servants and one of them says “I’d start by making her eyes less Shu.” [ end episode 3 spoiler ] i don’t think i have to explain to anyone how offensive that is. and i understand that the intention was to show how racist this servant is, that the entire point of of this weird racism plot is to show how the people of ravka can be racist and ignorant, but to have that line be written by a white writer, approved by a white showrunner and said by a white character to the face of an asian actor/character feels very tactless. it feels like another antagonist alina has to go against is racism itself. 

what also turns me off about this scene is that jessie mei li revealed that this scene is what actresses had to audition with. “...the sides that they sent for the audition, like Alina is talking to Genya and they’re talking about her eyes and they’re talking about her Shu ancestry.” having actresses of mixed-asian ancestry come in and act out that scene for white producers doesn’t really sit right with me. and i know that there’s an argument to be had about how it’s important to show the minutia of what it’s like to be ethnic in a world ruled by white supremacy and that it’s important to show how alina’s race affects her story, but i don’t think that going this far is necessary to the development of plot or character. 

and i don’t personally know jml, i don’t know how she feels about the show apart from what she’s probably briefed to talk about in interviews, but it is perfectly valid for me to feel iffy about the microaggressions while she feels that it’s necessary for character development ( again, this is just an example, i have no clue what she thinks of the racism ). our experiences are different, our upbringings are different, but we’re both happy to see representation and i’m happy that she’s happy to see an actual mixed-chinese character on screen as the lead. 

i’m glad that the producers were open to diversity and were open to making the lead a person of color, but it’s things like the treatment of shu characters and exchanges like “Tell her...Oh, I don’t know...good morning.” “I don’t actually speak Shu.” and “I didn’t know the Zemeni had such talent.” “She’s Suli.”  ( zemeni is a race of “dark-skinned” people and suli are coded south asian/mena/wena so this exchange is just white people mixing the brown people up )  that remind me the majority of the writers and producers are white. 

now i’m not saying that you should boycott the show or that this show is the most problematic thing to ever grace my retinas, because i really enjoyed watching it and i want to see what season 2 has in store ( more crows content please ). but, i want you all to please keep all of this in mind when you watch the series and think critically of what kinds of unconscious biases these producers had. you’re allowed to have nuanced opinions, you’re allowed to be critical of the media you enjoy so long as you understand where some people’s criticisms are coming from---where my criticisms are coming from. i just hope in future seasons the treatment of alina gets better and that she actually learns to love her shu side because otherwise it’s just going to be problematic as the show continues. 

[xsamsharons]

come here often? - n. lantsov

pairing: nikolai lantsov x healer!reader.

genre/warning: fluff. mentions of injuries.

words: 1.6k

summary: in which nikolai and you aren't really close, until he falls on his face and you fall in love.

It was a rather slow night considering you were working as the main healer aboard a ship that had the prince of Ravka as its captain and also counted the three leaders of the grisha triumvirate as part of the crew. Night after night, people would come in though the makeshift hospital David had built into your room for you, injured by the weirdest things you would ever imagine, and go back out to no doubt keep endangering their lives on behalf of their country. Now, you were not saying that fighting for your country was an dishonorable thing to do, the opposite actually, but for the life of you, you just couldn’t seem to understand how someone could possibly willingly jump off a ship and into an ocean filled with monsters and mythical creatures, and not expect any injuries.

Speaking of, as of right now you found yourself attending the injuries of none other but the captain himself, he looked like he hadn’t slept in ages, and reeked of sea water and sweat. The first time you had met him you had been extremely nervous about actually using your powers on him, after all, you didn’t wanna be known as the healer who had permanently injured the future king. That day you had learned that Nikolai became pretty delirious every time he was suffering from physical pain given as he had had a broken nose and damaged rib, but he had claimed that ‘the other guy had it worse’. This would’ve be a normal enough to say, except in this case, the ‘other guy’ was an ancient mythical being that has been believed to only exist in Ravkan’s passed down stories. Ever since then, he has been ending up in your room almost every night, and with your unfortunate luck, he always seemed to arrive right in your shifts.

His face was framed by messy strands that had fallen from his red tailored hair, and on his chest were displayed a couple of gold necklaces that matched the buttons of his red coat. He had been talking to you and distracting you from your work ever since he arrived, and to make matters worse, he had to rest on one of the beds in your room all night just in case the fall he had taken on his face somehow caused more damage than you had originally thought.

“So, you come here often?” he asked with a crooked smirk and wandering eyes.

“You mean my room? Where I work?” you answered, rolling your eyes when he nodded his head and raised his eyebrows, implying it was a totally logical question. “Yes, I come here often. Not as often as you it would seem. Quite prone to hurting yourself, aren’t you?”

“Maybe I just like to visit my favorite healer.”

Ah yes, the flirting. It seemed it wasn’t enough for him to already bother you with his presence, but he also made it his mission to flirt with you as much as possible during his stay.

“Firstly, I’m the only specialized healer you know, so that line isn’t as smooth as you think it is.” you started, continuing to work on his nose. “Secondly, I would appreciate it if you could keep your advances to the minimum. We don’t want you to damage your brain trying to come up with more pick up lines, seeing as it requires a lot of effort for you to even get coherent sentences out.” you said sarcastically and watched his smirk grow.

“What is it going to take for you to finally admit you actually really like me?” he asked, and for the life of you, you could not understand how he’d come to that conclusion when all you’ve ever done is turn him down. Nonetheless, you figured you’d follow his game. If you were going to spend your whole night by his side, you could use some fun.

“Well, for one, I have never seen you not beaten up, or showered for that matter, so that would be a great start.” you said, tailoring his nose to look like Sturmhond’s crooked one after you finished tending to it.

“It’s not my fault I always end up here in the nights when we get ambushed.” he said in a voice that could almost be considered as a whine, and you found yourself smiling at how cute he sounded when he wasn’t being an asshole. Still, you furrowed your brows in response to something he’d hinted at.

“Ambushed? What, like by other crews?” you asked and he nodded. “So, you tailor yourself to not get ambushed for being a royal, but we still are ambushed even when you look like Sturmhond? What’s the point then?”

“It may be kind of useless now that everyone in Ravka knows us, but I like pretending to be someone else sometimes.” he shrugged, a look that you’d never seen on his face appearing. “It’s stupid, i know” he snorted, trying to shake off the weight of his sentence after you remained quiet for a few seconds.

“It’s not stupid.” you were quick to deny. “I get it, believe me. Growing up as a grisha in Fjerda, I wished every night before bed to have the ability to simply be reborn as someone else.” you admitted, missing the shocked look on his face.

“You are Fjerdan?” he asked.

“What? That’s not in my file?” you answered with a question of your own and he rolled his green eyes.

After you accused him of violating your privacy for reading your file and he defensively said that it was his job to know his crew, you spent a few minutes teaching him Fjerdan words and took advantage of the little knowledge he had about your native language by making fun of his tailored face, knowing he couldn’t understand what you were saying.

“So, how come you praise yourself so much about your aim but seem to get beaten up every night?” you asked.

“Hey! I am actually an incredible shot, thank you very much.” he replied, offense clear on his voice, making you snort.

“Can’t be any good if the only times I ever see you is when you are injured.” you said sarcastically, and he made a face that seemed a bit dramatic in your opinion.

“Not my fault you are trapped between these four walls every night.” he replied, and now it was your turn to act defensively.

“Excuse you! I have a life outside of the hospital.” you said in a light tone, to let him know you weren’t truly offended.

“People who have lives don’t need to remind other people that they do.”

“People who are great in battle don’t need to remind other people that they are.”

“Touché.” he said with a smirk.

You spent the next couple of hours talking to Nikolai about random topics, him not failing to deliver a pick up line from time to time, and the night was slowly but surely starting to slip out of your hands. Right now, you were back to him being the topic of conversation after you had ranted for a couple of minutes about how hard it was to have to grow up in Fjerda hiding who you were. As you teased him telling him he had to settle for captain of a ship because he wasn’t a good enough royal (a claim he denied thoroughly), he looked like he wanted to say something else, before Genya entered the room with a smirk on her face.

“If you two lovebirds are done flirting, you are needed up on the main deck. Sparring session gone wrong - again.” she informed you, rolling her eyes at the usual recklessness of the crew.

“Yes, ma’am.” you saluted sarcastically, before turning back around to face Nikolai again and check his injuries one more time.

“You should actually stay upstairs with us sometime, that way I can prove to you that I'm actually good.” he suggested once Genya was out of the room again. “Plus, the day should be sunny today so we’ll probably spar a lot.”

“You’ve flirted with me every night you’ve been here and the answer’s always been the same, what makes you think tonight is going to be different?”

“Oh, come on. I promise I'll shower and I will try to not get punched in the face. That way you get to see me showered and not injured, it’s a package deal you can’t just ignore.” he pleaded, in reference to your words from earlier.

“All right, maybe I'll stay upstairs after I finish fixing the crew up, and if I catch sight of a certain arrogant royal I know, I might stick around to watch a sparring session or two.” you gave in with a smirk, leading him to the door so he could leave you alone to fix your room up a bit before you went upstairs.

“I’ll see you when I see you then.” he said while bowing his invisible pirate hat, and walked away with a wink.

He left you standing at your desk watching as, just like every other night, he slipped past your door and out onto the main deck again. You watched as he caught up with Genya and said something to her with a smirk, though you couldn’t quite catch the words the spoke, and turned back around to tidy up your room with a stupid smile on your face.

bonus:

“Did it work?” Genya asked him with raised eyebrows and a smile, her question in reference to the plan they had come up with to get Nikolai to spend more time with you. It consisted of Genya tailoring his face to look like he had fallen on his face and busted his nose open.

“Like a charm.” Nikolai nodded, a smile similar to the one you were wearing back in your room appearing on his face.

a/n: making fun of sturmhond's nose is a personality trait and it's mine (and alina's)

[incorrectquotesconaisseur]

SO GUYSSSS I JUST FINISHED READING RULE OF WOLVES AND WHAT THE HELL???? I am a MESS

(so here are my thoughts that I had while reading it)

❗❗RULE OF WOLVES SPOILERS❗❗

• Lol Nikolai has a horse named Punchline, I love him so much

• Sankta Zoya Y E S

• Nina is sooo badass I love her - Brum needs to die btw

• Fjerda is a little shit

• "If not for Nina, their blessed termite eating at the heart of Fjerda’s government" - did I mention I love Nina?????

• Nikolai is a freaking mastermind and I love him

• OMG THEY HAVE AN ANTIDOTE FOR PAREM NOW???? HELL YEAH take THAT Fjerda!!!!

• Nina adopting Kaz's mindset when back at the Ice Court is what I live for

• UGH THE APPARAT

• Nikolai is soooo in love with Zoya I AM GOING CRAZY

• Zoya's "you forget that in Kerch greed is a virtue" gave me MAJOR Kaz vibes... I miss my crow babies

• Maybe it's an unpopular opinion, but I don't really like Ehri

• ZOYALAI NATION, HOW ARE WE??? ARE WE CRYING?

• I just REALLY love the found family trope and seeing everyone gathered in Zoya's rooms and Zoya curled up on the couch next to Genya I just AAAAAAAAA

• I absolutely adore the whole concept of the Darkling's prison and the CONSTANT sunlight he has to face HA - Alina vibes

• OMG "bring me Alina Starkov" WHAT THE FUCK I have literal chills ESPECIALLY after seeing the S&B trailer:)

• Nina being so confident in everything she learned from the Crows gives me so much serotonin I WANT MY BABIESSS

• Oh my god... I like prince Rasmus, he gives me major Nikolai vibes

• I draw immense satisfaction from Kaz and Zoya using "podge" as their preferred curse word :))))

• NIKOLAI CAN SEPARATE HIMSELF FROM HIS DEMON???? King behavior

• HOLY SHIT ALINA AGREED TO THE MEETING here we go again, fam

• I'm seeing Nikolai talking a lot about accepting his death and being undisturbed by the prospect of it and it feeaks me out - if he dies, I die with him

• Random, but: they need to get the thorn stuff from the Order of Sankt Feliks or whatever, right??? Maybe they have to steal it... and they would require expertise... MAYBE SOME CROWS PLS???????? (I am such a clown)

• Okay wait... so the letters that prove Nikolai is a bastard are in the druskelle sector... PLEASE TELL ME NINA HAS TO BREAK IN THE ICE COURT the fact that she is back there ALONE makes my heart clench so hard... I MISS MY CROWS

• FUCK ALINA SHOWED UP (also Oncat apparently and now I want to cry about Harshaw again)... AND MAL I can't take this I AM HYPERVENTILATING

• I AM LEGIT ON THE FLOOR Yuri is still there FINALLY understanding that the Darkling is evil AND NOW MY MAIN MAN GOT HIS POWERS BACK oh, I love the chaos

• NIKOLAI FUCKING CARRIES ZOYA'S RIBBON IN HIS POCKET nobody fucking touch me

• THE WEDDING IS FOR GENYA AND DAVID????? I AM SOOO CONFUSED what the heck

• Nikoali is the most fucking badass amazing cunning freakishly intelligent idiot I have ever seen in my entire life, my love for him is immesurable, I cannot put into words just how awesome his awesomeness is TAKE THAT MAKHI YOU BITCH

• OH HELL NO the demon is trying to escape SMACK THAT BITCH NIKOLAI BABY

• Oh wow, Rasmus is crazyyyy af he isn't anything like Nikolai my perfect boi SORRY

• OMG Nikolai's dad us a good guy??? I feel so sorry for him... SO NIKOLAI WAS RIGHT TO BE A ROMANTIC huh

• FUCKING HELL again with the nichevo’ya???? Darkling bby, what the HECK

• Nononononooo NO NOOOO NOT DAVID WHAT THE FUCK LEIGH

• "This is what love does" one of the most powerful quotes tbh

• Wait... they want to???? STEAL??? titanium from the Kerch??? .... DOES THIS MEAN.... C R O W S?????

• Okay but... the Darkling's POV? POWER MOVE I love it!!! And the fact that he uses Aleksander as his name with zero reticence now is just *chef's kiss*

• I'm sorry but... I don't like Mayu's chapters I AM SO SORRY I DON'T

• Nina is my badass queen STEP ASIDE PEASANTS

• All these SoC Easter Eggs and mentions are driving me insane

• Idk why but imagining the Darkling drinking beer is sooo funny to me

• I AM LOSING MY SHIT they are in Ketterdam KETTERDAM does that mean ....DOES THAT MEAN ....I better see my Crows or I am throwing hands

• The Zoyalai conversations in this book are KILLING me

• OH MY FUCKING GOD so Kaz took the Emerald Palace over and renamed it THE SILVER SIX???? LIKE???? I AM LEGIT CRYING???

• Ummm...Zoya, honey, WHY do you want to VOLUNTARILY stay away from Nikolai, HUH?????

• THE ONLY REASON HE AGREED TO HELP NIKOLAI WAS BECAUSE HE GUARANTEES INEJ'S PROTECTION if that's not L O V E idk what is YAAASSS KANEJ

• FUCKING SHIT JESPER!!!! IT'S JESPER!!!! WYLAN!!!! I AM FAINTING MY BABIESS

• The Crows' banter is WHAT I LIVE FOR

• Kaz is the most cold, badass and calculating motherfucker on the planet, I love him soooo much

• No NO NOO JORAN IS THE ONE WHO KILLED MATTHIAS????? HOLY SHIT I am sooo scared LEIGH WHYYYY

• Kaz's reaction to Nikolai's demon is legit the funniest shit ever

• Kaz and Nikolai are bffs - THIS IS HEADCANON LEAVE ME BE

• Queen Leyti has severely disappointed me

• I am having waayyyyy too much fun reading about the Darkling among blindly faithful monks - this is the stuff of sitcoms

• (I know the Crows only had a cameo and they won't pop up again, but I can't help desperation wanting to see Nina reunite with them and PLEASE GIVE ME INEJ!!!)

• Honestly, it's pretty cool getting to have a look in the Darkling's head - it's SUPER fucked up

• OOOOO the blight vs the Darkling = the only confrontation I want to see

• FATHER AND SON REUNION

• I don't care much for Hanne x Nina, but I have to admit that they make a very cute couple

• FUCK THEY BROKE STURMHOND'S BLOCADE FUUUUCK

• WAIT NO it was their plan all along HOLY SHIT electricity RULEZZZZ who knew physics would prove THIS useful???

• UUUGHH FUCK THE APPARAT I am so sick of this guy - Zoya was right, they should have killed him

• I am really pissed at the Darkling- YOU FUCKING ACKNOWLEDGE HOW MUCH RAVKA NEEDS YOUR HELP, YOU SEE NIKOLAI'S BRAVERY, YOU KNOW YOU CAM HELP, AND YOU DO NOTHING??? BRO WHAT THE FUCK

• HELL YEAH ZOYA IS A DRAGOOON fuck some shit up sweety Y E S

• MY SKIN IS CLEARED AND MY CROPS ARE WATERED BY THE DARKLING RAISING A MOB TO CALL ZOYA "SANKTA"

• Also... the Darkling winking at Nikolai? FLERT

• WHAT THE FUCK???? HANNE DIED??? holy shit, why???? WHY CAN'T NINA BE HAPPY???????

• Nikolai is an absolute SAVAGE in a debate

• Idk what to think abt Rasmus... he was kinda badass for standing up against Brum

• SOLDIER. SUMMONER. SAINT. slap me and call me a hoe I SCREAMED WHEN I READ THAT

• ZOYA AS QUEEN, SIGN ME THE FUCK UP

• Okay I stan the Darkling again

• ZOYALAI IS CANON I REPEAT ZOYALAI IS CANONNNNN

• OKAY WOW HANNE IS A FULL-ON BADASS yep, I stan

• I really???? LOVE??? this ending for the Darkling??? Idk but it is VERY fitting

• ALINA!!!! AT ZOYA'S!!!! CORONATION!!!! my life is complete

• FUCKING SHIT INEJ!!! INEEEEEJJJJ my queen my love AAAAAA

• The conversation at the end between Alina, Zoya and Genya DESTROYED ME

• STEALING THE HEART OF SANKT FELIKS yes please BRING THE CROWS BACK!!!!! I NEED ANOTHER CROWS SEQUEL!!!!

• I fainted, I ascended, I DIED at the last page

• NOW I NEED A SEQUEL!!!

• Leigh, you ARE goig to write what happens next, right? RIGHT? RIGHT????

[cheekygreenty]

Little Witch- Part 11

The Darkling x Reader

I’m backkkkkkkkk besties 🥰🥰

The rest of the day was spent doused in the work the Darkling had given you earlier, so the time you would have spent otherwise mulling over his plans for the stag had to be pushed out of the way.

You had plenty of time left until the evening's dinner, where you would be formally announced as Deputy General to the Grisha of the Little Palace. You had already signed off on official letters to the camp commanders and First-Army leaders stating your position, but you doubted there would be any fuss from them.

Your own Grisha is who you had to be worried about. They didn't do well with change. Especially not when it came to a mysterious all-powerful Grisha coming and taking control of an army they'd never seen them be a part of before.

Nonetheless, this was happening whether they wanted it or not. Ravka needed to present a united front and adding another person to strengthen said front was essential. All you hoped for was a peaceful transition, no blood-baths. To hell if they whispered or rumored, you could handle that, you've been handling it.

You had a list of ever-changing priorities in your head, and on top of it was always Alina. You cared for your Grisha, no matter how much they hated you or how much you disliked them, and Alina wasn't any exception. You felt a pang of guilt flow through you at the thought of Aleksander using her against her better conscience but you shoved it away quickly. There was nothing you could do but talk to him and question him about the plan.

The plan. The stupid plan. You called it stupid because you didn't know anything about it and against your better judgment, it made you doubt his trust. Was it so bad, so cruel, that he couldn't tell me? Before you came to the Little Palace, you told yourself you wouldn't blindly trust anybody anymore. Aleksander had to be held to that standard too.

Your door was left slightly ajar, you were sick of the knocking at this point so when you heard a feminine voice call out your name you looked up instantly, ready to be hit with more reports.

'Ms.Y/L/N? I have been sent by the General to see if you wish to use any of my help' The red-haired Grisha looked at you with her bright blue eyes. Her white kefta pressed to perfection.

'You must be Genya' You stood up and welcomed her in.

'Sorry about the room, as you can see I don't have a proper desk yet' you laughed and watched her closely as she studied you. 'What do you do exactly? It's been years since I heard of a tailor and I've never had the pleasure to meet one.'

You noticed a look of surprise at your black kefta. If she had any questions, she most certainly didn't feel comfortable asking, he probably told her not to ask.

'I do all sorts of things, change the color of your hair, get rid of pesky scars, anything you don't like about yourself really..... well except your character, there's nothing anyone can do about that' She waved off and sat you down at your vanity, carefully pushing papers to one side.

'So? How about it?' She looked at you through the mirror and you pondered.

'Maybe the eye bags need to go?'

She nodded deeply, 'Definitely' you couldn't help but feel a little offended, but mostly amused.

'What do you propose then, Genya?'

'Hmmm, the eyebags for sure, put some color on your cheeks,-' She combed her hands through your hair and bit the inside of her cheek '-the hair needs something too, perhaps some shine?'

'Perhaps' You mused.

'I shall get to work then' she smiled.

****

After your pampering session with Genya and prying her open (more like soothing her) to talking about life at the Palaces and her life, you came to the conclusion that you would die for her. She was so kind and strong, no wonder she and Alina were always seen together, they were two peas in a pod. Her humor and wittiness, like yours, was refreshing, a breath of fresh air in the stiff and formal palace.

You didn't bother changing. The truth was you were tired already and a full day hadn't even passed of your new job. How did I do this for so many years? But still, you managed to put on your bravest smile and walk in the domed hall with your head held high and your black kefta on a show like a trophy.

Unlike the other time you and Aleksander dined together here, he was already sitting in his chair. Ivan was standing, ready to announce any war news and casualties. You could see Alina looking at you with a confused look on her face, but she still gave you a welcoming smile.

You sat down and cleared your throat in the deafening silence. Ivan began to speak but you heard none of it. Your head too full with thoughts on how this situation could go. You felt Aleksander move his hand to your thigh in a calming manner. You looked over to him and shot him a tight smile, before looking back to Ivan who was sitting down. Here goes nothing.

You stood up with Aleksander. The Grisha in the room couldn't understand what was going on, who was that person, wearing black nonetheless, sitting at the right side of the Darkling, on her own custom chair. The list of anomalies was never-ending.

He spoke first 'Today is a monumental day for the Second-Army, for all Grisha, for Ravka. Y/N Y/L/N has returned to the Little Palace and will be reprising her role of Deputy General, Second in Command of the Second Army.'

Nobody spoke but if looks could kill, I would be halfway into my grave by now.

'Ms. Y/L/N will play an essential part in our fight for freedom and justice. She is an outstanding leader, sometimes even better than I am, for she leads with compassion and understanding for all. She deserves nothing but the utmost respect and loyalty. If you for one second doubt her abilities, you might as well put cuffs around your own wrists, for disrespecting her is disrespect for me. I put my full faith in her.'

He turns to you and sits down, giving you all the attention.

'None of you will remember my reign as Deputy General, but I assure you I know what I am doing. The Little Palace and your lives are of most importance to me. I am here to protect and care for you, yes I will be giving commands, but rest be assured they are in your best interest.'

'I don't represent one order of Grisha, I represent and unite all of you-' You look towards the Etherialki '-I can summon the strongest of gales and light the Palace's fires-'

You turn your head toward the Materialki '-I can bend any metal, bleed fabric of its color-'

Your eyes meet Fedyor's '-I can soothe a heart and crush every bone in a body-'

You stand straighter '- and I can summon the shadows, call the darkness. With me at your side, I will make the Grisha kind loved once again, we will not be hunted or enslaved. Ravka's borders will be peaceful. I am putting my trust into each and every single one of you to help me achieve our utopia'

You sit back down and only then do you notice your shaking hands. You don't dare look up out of fear but a calming hand on your back almost forces you to. And you're glad because almost every Grisha in the room is looking, no, worshipping you. Their eyes glazed over and their mouths open in shock. Even Zoya looked astounded.

He leans in to whisper in your ear 'I'm so proud of you'

*****

You ate amongst the other Grisha that night, feeling a sense of belonging and confidence pulsing through you. It went down way better than you'd expected. Nobody threw a fit or tried your life. And you were happy. The sleep you had that night was the best you'd had in years.

The next morning, and the morning after that, was taken up entirely by work. Aleksander went away and so you were left with the runt of the jobs. But you had made yourself extremely comfortable in his quarters. At first, you only came to make use of the war room, then you sat at his desk to drink your tea and concentrate on work, and ultimately fell asleep in his bed, enclosed by his scent and those forgiving black sheets.

There was so much work to do and only so many hours in the day, and Aleksander decided to make life that much harder by renewing the search for Morozova's stag. You couldn't keep up.

You were waiting on a certain somebody. You had instructed the oprichniki to bring her here right after she was done with Baghra, no later. And so you stood there, inspecting the war table when a gentle knock echoed throughout the room.

'Come in'

'Deputy General' She addressed you with a curt nod.

'Please Alina, call me Y/N' you looked at her from your place at the table, hands resting on the map. She looked slightly uncomfortable but way less scrawny than when you'd first seen her. Her hair was filler and her skin glowed. She looked healthy now. Aleksander must see this too.

'I can see using your powers has affected you in more ways than one.'

'Oh-yes umm.. my appetite's grown so much since I got here it's rather funny' She was growing more comfortable.

'That's completely normal if you're using your powers more often' You smiled and walked around to her. 'I thought we could have a cup of tea or two, and you could tell me all about yourself Alina, and the things that are troubling you. I don't want you to feel like you're all alone in this place.'

'Dep- Y/N I assure you I am most certainly fine. There’s no need t-’

'I was once like you… and I can sense a troubled soul with my eyes closed.'

She stared at you with her defensive walls up, not letting any emotion slip though the cracks behind her eyes.

‘Alina… I mean you no harm. I’m just worried. Isn’t it nice to have someone worry for Alina and not the sun-summoner for a change?’ You cracked a sad smile and walked over to the tea the servants had brought.

‘Sugar?’

Part 12

Taglist (tell me if u want to be added!!)

@theonelittleone @searching-for-gallifrey @0-artemis @lostysworld @xceafh @fire-in-her-veinz @patdsinner33 @cleverzonkwombatsludge @wizardwheezes @aleksanderwh0r3 @tomhollandisabae @hotleaf-juice @justmesadgirl @exo-1204 @houseofdupree @oberonpascal @eireduchess

[sitaarein]

None Stand Equal In This Dark World

A/N: Officially my largest ever fic so please. Just read it and be nice sob because I’m kinda proud of some of it

Written for @grishaversebigbang 2021!!!

Corporalki: @homicide-depot​

Materialki: @generalnabri (x), @kolarpem (x), @aivicart (x), @maximumbluebirdpatrol , @niadrawing (x)

 (Summary: A murder mystery AU featuring Zoyalai, twists and turns, moral dilemma, and then some more

Read on AO3

Chapter One

The apartment door was wide open.

 In retrospect, that alone should have set off the alarm bells in Zoya’s head. No one left the door to their place wide open. She can’t imagine why she simply dismissed it. 

 Scratch that, she knew why. She’d been tracking this idiotic Grisha for a month now. She was tired and desperate. 

 But it appeared that- who would’ve thought- not being at the top of your game has consequences. 

 Consequences like staring down a man who’s been tied to a chair and gagged in the middle of, what Zoya guesses is, the lounge, eyes wide with terror.

 Zoya is mad at herself for not managing to guess it was a red herring- the damn door - and very, very mad at the Grisha who has, once again, slipped right through her hands. 

 She nods to one of her men, and he immediately drops to the man’s level to untie and presumably interrogate him. Zoya doesn’t stick around for the details- she trusts her people to give her good reports. Instead, after a cursory look around, she tips her head back to face the ceiling, taking in a deep breath, and leaves the apartment. 

 The weather outside took a dramatic turn in the fifteen minutes she was inside- it had been sunny before, or at least as sunny as Ravka ever could get. But now, the sun has all but ceased to exist, and the bitter cold is back once more. 

 Zoya prefers the cold. 

 (She doesn’t, not really, but no one needed to know that.)

 Zoya starts walking, pulling her coat tighter around herself. Her mind races, trying to connect all the dots, trying to figure out where her investigation had gone wrong. Start from the beginning. Don’t miss anything. The most minor of details are the most important.

  The beginning. A woman showed up to their headquarters about her missing family. Those cases were usually dismissed completely, handed over to the police forces- Zoya’s force was Grisha-centric, other cases, no matter how large or important they were, did not concern them. But this case was different.

 The woman was Grisha. 

 Her family weren’t, evidently- and neither did they know that she was. They’d been missing for six weeks, and the odds were pretty heavily stacked against them still being alive. The woman was detained (she was Grisha, this was Zoya’s job ) and a group of officers were dispatched for a search and rescue.

 The officers never returned.

 Alarm bells were now ringing, and the General assigned Zoya to the case. In the time since she officially took over, twenty more disappearances were documented, and all of them in Os Kerva alone. Saints knew what was happening in the rest of the country.

 But Zoya had never believed in Saints, so she found out what was happening in the rest of the country.

 The total number of disappearances in all of Ravka that had this case’s signature mark- an eclipsed sun left wherever the victims were seen last- was an estimated three thousand . Zoya couldn’t believe no one had connected the dots before her. Then again, the entire of the force were filled with incompetent idiots, so maybe it shouldn’t have surprised her. 

  The series of events . Zoya travelled up and down the country with the best of her underlings, talking to anyone who knew the victims, searching their last known places with tooth combs, building up working hypotheses, using all the resources they had available. Zoya was not an idiot. She knew exactly how capable she was. 

 And she also knew when she was fighting a losing battle.

 And so, when she got a call from one of her top detectives about a confirmed Grisha she’d been trailing for some time now who’d begun suspicious activity, she was clutching at straws and willing to take anything that came her way. She met up with her agent, and a few days later, they got the address of the apartment she was currently pacing in front of.

  The present . This part could be summed up fairly quickly. Zoya is, once again, at a fucking dead end . 

 Before she can kick something (or someone) out of frustration, A faint ringing reaches her ears, and frowning, Zoya stops in her tracks. Her phone is never not on silent. Calling Zoya Nazyalensky for anything was utterly pointless- she never picked up. 

  But the GIA has ways of getting into contact with its members regardless.

 Muttering a curse, Zoya digs around her pockets, looking for the infernal device with its grating, high-toned ringing. Finally locating her phone, she jabs the answer button without looking at the caller ID.

 “Yes?” she asks bluntly. 

 “Zoya,” Alina’s voice greets her.  

 Zoya immediately forgets everything that had been on her mind. When Alina calls, it’s rarely for a friendly chat. 

 “What’s wrong?”

“You need to get back here. As soon as possible.”

 “Understood. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

 Alina hangs up immediately, and Zoya pockets her phone, mind racing.

 She orders one of her lackeys to send her a report when they're done, grabs the keys for the van they’d used to get to the apartment from a rather distracted officer, taking off.

 Zoya reaches the Grisha Investigation Authorities in approximately half the time she’d given to Alina, and she may or may not have disobeyed quite a few traffic laws to get to her destination as quickly as she did, but that was frankly unimportant. 

 She strides through the doors, not bothering to acknowledge the many who’ve halted their paths to nod to her or, in the case of a few particularly stupid (or courageous, however you wanted to see it) people, attempt to strike up a conversation with her. She didn’t break her pace even once, until she’d reached the door to the meeting room they usually used to meet up for serious issues. After taking a moment to compose herself, Zoya pushes the door open.

 Inside, she finds all of her fellow Commanding Officers assembled- Adrik, Leoni, Alina, and Genya. Frowning, Zoya scans their faces, and mentally shifts whatever’s happening even higher on her scale of terrible shit to take care of immediately.

 Because not even Leoni, who can find positivity at a funeral, is smiling right now. There’s barely a hint of her optimistic and eternally cheerful personality in her countenance. 

 Zoya carefully takes the seat left for her around the circular table. Her gaze flits from one worried face to another, and she decides to be direct.

 “How bad is it?”

 The question seems to jolt Alina out of her reverie. She looks up, and Zoya feels her breath catch, because she looks so… helpless. Terrified.

 Genya takes it upon herself to answer Zoya’s question with another question, her mouth set in a grim line. “How’s your investigation going?”

 “We lost the suspect,” Zoya admits, her earlier frustration returning with the reminder of the infernal case. “We’re right back to where we started- but without the hope and the general idea of where to start.”

 “I’m not surprised,” Adrik mutters. “Considering who your delightful suspect is…”

 Zoya furrows her brow, and glances back at Genya. “Explain.”

 Genya looks as if she would rather do anything else, but after coming to the realisation that no one else is about to, she sighs and does so.

 “I’m presuming you remember Alina’s case that went cold about two years back?”

  A little too well. Even years later, that case haunts her- the truly horrific killings, from corpses with their body parts stuffed down their throats, to children who had clearly been still alive when burnt, the utter dead ends, Alina’s far too close brush with death, and… the person behind it all.

 “You don’t think it’s the same person??” Zoya demands, horror spreading through her veins.  She can not handle another Kirigan. 

 In lieu of replying, Genya nods to Leoni, who pushes forward a large envelope. Dread pooling in her gut, Zoya opens the package to find pictures from Alina’s investigation.

 “We revisited these when your disappearances started,” Genya says. “And… found more similarities than we’re frankly comfortable with.” 

 Zoya shifts the photos around, and then freezes at one, having caught sight of a mostly blurry but still distinctive calling card. “That’s…”

 “The eclipsed sun,” Adrik provides grimly. “You’re screwed.”

 “Hey, now,” Leoni protests. “We don’t know that.”

 Adrik snorts. “Don’t we? Need I remind you of the damage this person wrecked to the GIA and our country?”

 “How do we know this isn’t just a copycat?” Zoya breaks in. “None of the bodies of the victims this time around have been discovered,”

 “Copy cats still tend to have their own twists on kills, a signature, a mark that’s theirs. While none of the killings for either case have many similarities, they also don’t vary in terms of said signature.” Genya says.

 “Killers are proud creatures,” Adrik inputs.

 “And this one’s no exception,” Leoni says, eyes grim. 

 Zoya looks up. “What do you know?”

 Leoni hesitates, but then gives in. “We got a note this morning. A photocopy should be in the envelope too.”

 Zoya overturns the envelope, and sure enough, a piece of paper falls out. She picks it up, reads it, and crumples it up. 

 “You’re sure this isn’t a stupid joke?”

 “It was in the Director’s office.” Leoni says. 

  Shit.  Zoya glances back down at the crumpled mass she’s still clutching. You will burn on your mistakes. What mistakes? 

 She ignores the faint voice in the back of her head. You know what mistakes.

 Zoya takes a deep breath, focuses her thoughts, and then exhales. “How’s the Director doing?”

“He’s terrified.” All of the COs seemed to be equally startled to see Alina was the one to speak. Her mouth is set in an angry line, and Zoya can guess the track of her thoughts, because they were the same ones that had crossed her mind upon hearing the words- who is he to be terrified? What right did the Director even have to feel scared, when he himself never so much as interacted with the cases???

 Adrik sighs, leaning back in his seat. “Which is what has led us to our current predicament.”

 “And what do you mean by that?” 

 Genya exhales in a huff. “He wants the Mentals on this case along with all of us.”

 “He what.” 

 Alina, lips twisted in a sardonic smile, gestures to nothing in particular. “You heard correctly.”

 “Why ??? This is my case, and I will handle it.”

 “He doesn’t want a repeat of the bad press that came with my failing last time, I’m guessing.”

 “Bad press,” Zoya spits out. “I wonder how much bad press he’ll get when I-”

 “Do not,” Genya warns. “This could be helpful to us.”

  But also a personal disgrace , Zoya finishes the sentence in her head. The Mentals were practically a legend of the GIA- they were special, elite investigators, a whole mix of people ranging from scientists to- if the rumors were correct- ex-spies, who ended up with the cases no one else in the force could solve, and somehow, without fail, solved each of them within a week at the least. 

 It was irritating as hell.

 And having them assigned on your case meant that the Director did not trust you to be successful on your own. 

 Absolutely wonderful.

 “So when are these... spectacular detectives arriving?” Zoya asks. 

 Genya opens her mouth, and then closes it, before starting, “Well-”

 “I hope I’m not too late to this marvelous party?”

 Zoya swivels to see who this truly abnormally cheerful person is, and then blinks. She turns back to face the others once more- Adrik still looks glum, Leoni is smiling her most polite smile, Alina seems to have perked up and Genya is genuinely smiling. They all look… unsurprised.

 Of course they were hiding more secrets up their sleeves.

 “ What,” Zoya finally breaks and asks. “Is the damned PR guy doing here?”

 The aforementioned PR guy pouts. “Is that really what I’m known for around here? My PR duties? That’s quite depressing. Why would you focus on that when you could talk about my stunning good looks, or my undeniable charm, or even my ability to-”

 “Nikolai,” Alina interrupts. “Shut up.” she looks at Zoya, a hint of dry amusement in her eyes. 

 “Zoya, this is Nikolai Lantsov, and he is indeed our PR guy, but he’s also… head of the Mentals.”

 Zoya blinks. He’s what??? And then, wait… they knew who the special investigators were? How long have they known? Why was I not informed?

 She doesn’t voice any of her thoughts, choosing instead to stare, unimpressed, at the blond, who grins at her in response. 

 “If I had known you possessed such astounding grace and beauty, Miss Nazyalensky, I would have made your acquaintance sooner! I’m sure these upcoming days will prove to be an absolute pleasure, provided I get to spend them in your delightful company.”

 “Saints save me,” Zoya utters faintly. “The Director assigned an idiot to my case.”

 “Hey, now!” Nikolai protests. “You haven’t even met the rest of my team yet!”

 “An idiot who talks too much,” she deplores. 

 Genya and Alina both snort at that. In fact, all of her fellow COs seemed to be taking far too much pleasure in this situation. Zoya hates all of them. 

  “Well, now that we’ve gotten the pleasantries out of the way,” Nikolai says, to which Zoya distinctly hears Adrik mutter “pleasantries?” under his breath, “I think now would be a wonderful time for me to introduce you to my brilliant team,”

  Genya sits up immediately, looking eager. Zoya wonders what that’s about. 

 She finds out fairly quickly.

 Nikolai ushers in a group of people, and she recognises one in particular, one who she has, in fact, known since her college years -

 David. Genya’s husband, David Kostyk, is a part of the Mentals. Harmless old David. Zoya can’t believe her eyes. 

 She scans the rest of the group, but the others barely seem familiar. The two Shu right in front of David look similar enough to be twins, apart from the height difference. Right next to David is a woman that, with a jolt, Zoya recognises as Adrik’s sister from what she’s heard and seen of her. Bringing up the rear is a man who vaguely resemblesNikolai himself, ducking his head shyly as he enters the room. 

 “Now that your merry party is all assembled,” Adrik says glumly. “Any ideas where to start?”

 “Shouldn’t we at least get to know each other first?” Adrik’s sister asks.

 Adrik stares at her. “I’ve known you since I was born.”

 “We’re not the only ones in the room, Adrik.”

 “Oh, aren’t we ? I can’t say I noticed.”

 Nikolai interrupts their glaring match to finally provide Zoya with names to all the unfamiliar faces. 

 “Tamar, Tolya, Nadia, and Isaak, meet the officers we’ll be working with for the next few weeks or longer- Alina, Genya, Zoya, Leoni, and Adrik,” he gestures towards each person in turn. Zoya briefly wonders how he already knows their names, before realising that just because the GIA didn’t know who the special investigators were didn’t exactly mean they didn’t know the GIA either. 

 “And now,” Nikolai beams. “Let’s get comfortable. It’s time to discuss our present conundrum!”

[qqueenofhades]

Whew!

Darklina + academia AU? (Professors, students, whatever dynamic you find most interesting)

Alina Starkov has always loved maps.

There’s just something about them: the deeply human struggle to understand the world, to sketch it out, to imagine fantastic beasts and lands and people on the margins, here be dragons. It’s half illusion and half reality, a guidebook both to what lies out there and what is dreamed of. She is fascinated by the relative accuracy of maps drawn long before satellites and space photographs – that, say, the sixteenth-century Europa recens descripta à Guileilmo Blaeuw does look pretty much like the modern continent. Well, mostly. She wrote her undergraduate senior thesis on the fictional island of Frisland, long believed to exist in the North Atlantic Ocean just south of Iceland, and its role in premodern cartographic and geographic imagination. Rereading it now gives her a twitch, as it always does with academics trying to revisit their past work, but it’s not all bad. It won her a prize and it impressed Professor Baghra Morozova, the fearsome head of the Department of Medieval Studies at Central European University, Vienna. (Best method to survive her class: Pray.) And it’s why Alina, still feeling very, very much like a terrible fraud – though she’s been assured this is likewise common to academics, so yay? – is working late in the main library on Quellenstraße, stifling yawns. She has a supervision meeting tomorrow, and if she half-asses this, Baghra will eat her alive.

Alina has been working for a while, pausing only to slug lukewarm coffee from her travel mug and answer texts from her flatmate Genya, when she becomes aware that there’s some other late-night diehard skulking in the stacks. This isn’t uncommon, but this guy doesn’t look like your usual desperate slacker. He’s tall, lean, and elegant, wearing a black shirt and crisp slacks, and – Alina has eyes, sue her – he’s extremely good-looking. Thick dark hair with a bit of a curl, a sharp dark gaze, and although he has his own stack of books, he doesn’t seem to be paying attention to any of them. In fact, he is looking – a little unsettlingly – directly at her.

Oh, hell. Alina hasn’t spoken to him before, but she knows who this is. Aleksander Morozov is an urban legend at CEU, for rather ominous reasons. He is rumored to be in some indeterminate year of his own PhD, but disappears at long stretches for “research trips,” and nobody is any the wiser about what he’s actually doing on them. Noting the similarity of surname, Alina once asked Baghra if they were related, and got a face that looked like someone had died. “Unfortunately,” her supervisor said, lips pursed, “he is my son. But I assure you, his presence on this campus has nothing whatever to do with me.”

Understanding that familial relations were, to say the least, chilly, Alina hasn’t pushed it. She’s also not sure what to make of her professor’s estranged (and disturbingly attractive) offspring sitting here and watching her study, as if he has nothing better to do than haunt first-year PhD students like the Ghost of Bad Decisions Yet To Come. At last, she gets up and marches over. Keeping her voice at librarian-approved levels, she hisses, “Excuse me, can I help you?”

She speaks in English, the lingua franca of CEU, though the Morozovas are political exiles from the Putin regime, like White Russians fleeing the Bolsheviks once upon a time. Alina herself is ancestrally Russian – born in Moscow, adopted by a nice British couple out of an orphanage and raised in suburban Sussex – and as Aleksander Morozov flicks those onyx eyes up at her, she can sense him weighing how to respond. As if he wants to test her, examine her bona fides, and Alina’s Russian is limited to “da,” “privyet,” and “dosvidaniya.” Not that he should know that. Not that he should know anything about her.

“Good evening,” he answers, also in English. His Received Pronunciation is even more posh than hers. “I wasn’t aware that I was disturbing you.”

“You’re – ” Alina wrestles with herself, tells herself not to be rude. It’s not a crime to sit and watch someone study, even in a mildly creepy fashion. “You’ve just been watching me for, like, an hour now.”

“Ah.” He doesn’t apologize or explain why that might be. He sits back in his chair, studying her like a piece of rare porcelain. “My apologies, Miss Starkov.”

Alina glances at him again, despite herself. There’s an undeniable thrill at actually talking to the campus heartthrob, even if the reason for it leaves something to be desired. She should say something else, when she becomes aware that he’s addressed her by name, and she doesn’t remember introducing herself. That doesn’t exactly do anything to convince her that he’s not a stalker. A little uneasily, she says, “How do you know my name?”

“You’re my mother’s student, aren’t you?” He cocks his head. “Alina?”

“I – yes.” That does explain it, although she didn’t realize the two of them were on speaking terms, or that they discussed her. Her name sounds unusual in his mouth, deliberate in a way nobody has spoken it before, and all at once, he gets to his feet. He stands several inches taller than her, and he starts piling his books into his bag, as if to discreetly absent himself now that she’s noticed him. “You don’t – ” she starts. “I didn’t mean to – ”

He looks at her again, sidelong. Then he says, “I should go home and get some sleep. I’m returning to Oxford tomorrow morning anyway.”

“Oxford?”

“I went to school there.” He utters a short, dry laugh. “All the good Russians do. And they live in Londongrad.”

That explains the accent, at least, and he seems to have some other business there, whether it’s another of the “research trips” or a guest lecture or whatever else. (Alina hasn’t seen his CV, but she has a sneaking feeling it’s the kind of thing to make her throw her drafts in the trash and never do anything in academia again.) Despite herself, she’s curious, and even though she has just told him to get lost, kind of, she wants to know. “Will you be back?”

Aleksander Morozov studies her with utter, unblinking intensity, as if he sees past flesh and bone, blood and sinew, to the very core of her, something that even she does not fully comprehend. Then he shrugs, his eyes never leaving her face, until Alina feels a shiver travel down her from head to toe, cold and powerful, twisting in her stomach. “Perhaps I will. Good night, Miss Starkov.”

With that, he nods to her, then turns on his heel, vanishing into the shadows as effortlessly as if he is made from them. No sound, no breath. Simply there one moment, and gone the next. Alina rubs her eyes, but she is alone in the library. Just as she wanted. Wasn’t it?

She can’t help her eyes from searching for him, or rather the vanished impression of him, the flutter of a curtain after someone has left the room. Before she can stop it, she has the thought that he very much is a map of his own, a path that leads into a strange dark land beyond the boundaries of the known world, a dragon or a doorway, a dream of what could be. Maybe something entirely ordinary. Maybe something not.

Alina shivers again, and returns to her carrel. She sits down and pulls the next book toward her, forcing her tired eyes to focus. Just because Aleksander Morozov – Aleksander Morosov – is a map, albeit the strangest one she has ever seen, it does not mean she needs to follow where he leads. She knows damn well the danger.

(And yet, despite herself, she wants to.)

[jomiddlemarch]

Games are the most elevated form of investigation

“This is a stupid game, Fedya,” Ivan said, taking a long swallow of the ale left in his tankard, setting it back down on the table lightly, which startled David more than if he’d let it land with a thump. Or maybe David had been startled by Genya’s bright smile, her unabashed greed as she reached for the dish of lamb-filled buuz. It was hard to say and Fedyor, deliciously tipsy on his third glass of ale, didn’t care.

“You think all games are stupid, Vanyushka, so it doesn’t matter,” Fedyor said. Zoya, the darling girl, poured him a fourth glass, properly, without any foam. Ivan did something with his face that was supposed to indicate disapproval but it didn’t make a difference, because he was still adorable.

“Then this is the stupidest one,” Ivan said.

“Is that even a word, stupidest? Isn’t it most stupid?” Zoya said.

“It is most stupid,” Ivan agreed, as if Zoya had been supporting him. She’d rather just gossip, they all knew that, even if it had to do with the General, who was generally considered off-limits when it came to rumors and innuendo.

“I’m not listening to you, either of you, tra la la,” Fedyor said, ending with a trill. “What if—”

“What if we stopped playing this most stupid game?” Ivan interrupted.

“What if—” Fedyor tried again, undaunted and now frankly drunk. Ivan gave him a long, slow smile and Fedyor thought, fleetingly, that the game was stupid and Vanyushka, in their bed, in nothing but a sheet and the shadows and that entrancing smile, was the farthest thing from stupid, but there were principles to uphold, Fedyor was fairly certain he’d thought that around the second glass of ale and David looked puzzled and intent, as if the game were a problem to be solved, and Genya was still reaching for dumplings.

“What if what?” Genya asked through a mouthful of buuz.

“What if there had been two Sun Summoners for the General to choose between?” Fedyor said.

There was a unanimous groan as if he’d said what if Baghra were your mother, a degree of unity he hadn’t anticipated.

“That’s not a good what-if,” David (David!) declared. “Because there’s no tension when you try to come up with a response. It’s too easily resolved.”

“I don’t see how—” Fedyor said, but Genya talked over him, gesticulating dramatically. She didn’t seem to notice David sidling closer to her, within striking distance of her slender white hand.

“The General would have made sure to train them equally well and accommodate any discrepancies in their abilities. He’d have seen to it they were both completely loyal to the rest of the Grisha. He would have readied the Gaisma suite along with the Vezda, presented them at court at the same time, had identical keftas commissioned.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Fedyor said.

“He would have looked for more,” Zoya said. “Two means three, four, seven. It means being a Sun Summoner is simply rare and not unique.”

“He would have asked me whether they could Summon in tandem without an external equipment and then he would have asked me to build a device to multiply their power,” David said. “It’s an intriguing question, if you consider whether paired power amplification can ever match merzost and don’t only rely on Sankt Ilya’s writings…”

“I mean, about the General and Alina—” Fedyor tried again.

“Nothing would be different,” Ivan said. “He’d still, Saints help me, be in love with her—”

“Oh, Vanya’s right,” Genya said, David confident enough to nod along, his shoulder touching hers, just barely. “There’s no what-if that changes that, how he feels about Alina.”

“That’s crazy,” Fedyor said.

“No, it’s not,” Ivan said and now Zoya nodded along. “He doesn’t love her because she can Summon the light. Or the Sun, they’ve never made that part clear—”

“Then why?”

“Because she said no to him, when every other Grisha has said yes for as long as anyone can remember,” Zoya said, a little bitterly. It suited her, a little bitterness, but no one called her out for it. It wasn’t shameful to play to one’s strengths and she played so very beautifully and she had been the General’s favorite before that fateful crossing of the Fold.

“Because she is an artist, because she looks around her and draws what she sees. Because she sees what she draws,” Genya offered.

“Because she was willing to sacrifice everything for someone she cared about, even when they didn’t care for her the same way,” David said, shockingly au courant on Alina’s personal history for someone who barely left his workroom. “Because she was ready to go into the dark for her friend, when she had no idea she had any light within her.”

“Because she listens to him and sometimes, after he’s spoken, she laughs. At him,” Ivan said. “That’s why, Fedya. That’s why there’s no what-if to consider. There could be a thousand Sun Summoners. Alina has no rival for the General’s affections. Not in this world or any other.”

“Well, then, if you’re all so convinced you’re right, how about this? What if Baghra knew the General loved Alina with all his heart?” Fedyor said. Zoya and Genya grimaced and David closed his eyes for a moment, bowed his head as if in prayer. Ivan grunted, then pushed Fedyor’s glass away.

“This is supposed to be a fun game, miliyy,” Ivan said.

“What—" Fedyor said.

“Stupid can be fun. Nothing about Dame Baghra could ever be fun,” Ivan said. “Nor, for better or worse, could she ever be said to be stupid. If she knew how he felt—”

“If Baghra knew—” Genya echoed.

“It is not that incredible a scenario,” David said. “In fact, it’s one we should consider likely. And prepare for accordingly.”

“How can you prepare for the end of the world?” Ivan asked. David shrugged.

“That’s what I thought,” Ivan said. “But sealing that secret door to the General’s War Room would be a start.”

[jessamine--lovelace]

Any soft Zoyalina headcanons?

anon marry me??

so this is a sort of modern au or just not that canon compliant because after row zoyalai owns me. and maybe Alina has her powers here because I said so

on their first anniversary, genya talks them into changing their hair colour. alina is super down with it but Zoya needs some persuasion

it takes alina a lot of sweet talk, kisses and some begging to get zoya on board, but she eventually agrees

so they end up with matchy blue hair, the colour of their keftas

Zoya complains the whole time and genya threatens her that she'll make her a redhead if she doesn't stay put. it shuts zoya up and alina laughs at her about it later

i feel like zoya is the lazier one? she is the last to get up from the bed/wake up and alina is glad because she gets to watch zoya sleep in the mornings

the sun shining on her dark skin and her hair, making her look absolutely beautiful and alina's heart just can't handle it

Zoya is kinda like a cat in this way? always shifts in bed so she gets to the warmest part? the sun is shining on alina's part of the bed and alina gets up from the bed for 2 minutes? yeah it's zoya's side now

somehow alina ALWAYS has cold hands/feet which zoya finds exceedingly ironic since she's a sun summoner, so she makes fun of it, but always cuddles alina close to her so they can warm up together

they kiss each other's hands

but somehow, holding hands in public isn't really for them??? they'll keep a hand in each other's back pocket if one of them feels possessive or one of them will hold the other's wrist if they're in a crowd or they link their arms together, but they tend to prefer they hands free most times they're together

because maybe sometimes zoya will play with the wind softly so it blows alina's hair out of her face and maybe alina likes making rays of sunshine shine on zoya, making her skin glow and warming her up. but they would never admit it to each other

they hold hands when they're alone tho, especially when they have sex or just stay in bed. it's comforting they definitely have a kink for each other's hands just saying

they just adore each other so much? and sometimes they stare at each other like they've never seen each other.

i feel like they're both extra needy, but hate showing it, or more like zoya acts tough but ends up having to spell it out for alina because she's oblivious like that sometimes and zoya needs attention and affection right then and there. for alina is a bit more difficult because she never knows how to talk to zoya about her needs? even after years of being together she's still a big self conscious and has to take her time before asking for attention. but they're working on that together

alina was the one to say "I love you" first, but zoya kissed her first

alina loves using zoya's boobs as a pillow, it's the most comfortable place in the whole world for alina.

most times, zoya ends up being the big spoon because alina is warm under the covers

speaking of covers, zoya steals the blanket and alina made peace with that fact and has an extra blanket just for herself

this is longer than expected. let me know what u think of it and don't hesitate to pop in my askbox to make me talk about them more

[where-theres-smoak-2]

Darkling Character Analysis

Full disclaimer, I’ve not read the books, though I have ordered the first so I am hoping to have read that soon. But just so you are aware this character analysis is based entirely on the show version of the character. Obviously there will be spoilers for all of season one. Also I just want to say that my aim with this analysis was to sort of get into The character’s head and so alot of this is just what I think the character might have been thinking, feeling and what his motivations may be, it does not mean I agree or disagree with his actions. When I am giving my view on his actions I will try to make it as clear as possible. Also this is just my interpretation of the character and my own opinions on the character, it is ok if you disagree. So obviously this is an analysis of the character The Darkling but I am also going to be talking about his relationship with Alina so I guess its also a sort of analysis of their relationship too just solely from Aleksander’s side of it. I will be using all of the names he has interchangeably because he has so many that I don’t know which one to stick with (seriously haven’t seen a character with this many different names since Jace from Shadowhunters) so sorry if that’s annoying. Fair warning this one is probably the longest analysis I have ever written and they are usually pretty long so I would suggest if you are going to read this maybe get some beverages and snacks first. I mean I think it shows how compelling and interesting a character he is that I was able to waffle on as long as have about him. But yeah its long. Of course you can also always scroll on past. But if you would like to read it then the rest is under the tag. 

Ok so first off I think the show does a really good job of building up the character in the first episode by giving us some information on The Black General before we and Alina officially meet him, they really give the character this air of mystery by giving us only a small amount of information about him but also by not letting us see his face. We get small tantalising glimpses of him, a shot of his boots in the mud, his carriage passing by, the back of him with his cloak billowing in the wind as the skiff enters the fold. It’s just enough to peak the audience’s interest. But most of what we learn in episode one is from what other character’s tell us. The very first mention we get of The General is from Mal and it’s a very small detail but I actually think it can tell you alot about The Darkling’s character. When Mal and Alina come across the Grisha practising Mal says ‘They’re always picking on us when their General’s not around.’ This seems like such a throwaway comment designed to show us how the First Army feel about Grisha and paints this picture of the Grisha thinking they are higher and mightier than those who are not Grisha. But it actually suggests that if they only do it when The General is not around then he does not tolerate Grisha bullying First Army. That he doesn’t think its ok for them to act like they are higher and mightier than those who are not Grisha and that he believes in humility even. Which I think is really interesting. This tracks with Nadia’s comment later in episode three when she says that General Kirigan insists that the Grisha eat peasant fare to keep them humble. Yet while he encourages humility he also makes sure that the Grisha have everything they need in order to flourish and he obviously cares a great deal about the Grisha, I feel like rising the Grisha up and making them strong has been pretty much his only drive and motivation over the hundreds of years since the fold was created. 

The other thing we learn which is repeated a couple of times by a few of the characters is that The General cannot bring down the Shadow Fold. In fact I think there are two conversations about it. The first between Inej, Jesper and Kaz when Jesper asks why the General hasn’t taken it down to which Inej replies ‘Have you ever put out fire by adding more fire?’ The other conversation is more flippant and is between Dubrov and Mikhael, where Mikhael sarcastically says the General is there to save the day and Dubrov asks if he’s going to tear down the fold. So on two occasions we have characters believing the General is powerful enough to fix the problem of the fold only for them to be corrected and told that he can’t. It seems like the show wants to make it very clear that the General will not be destroying the fold and I could be reaching here but this could be foreshadowing for later when we learn he doesn’t desire to bring down the fold.       

Of course even after the first episode the character of the Darkling still remains a bit of a mystery. He’s the kind of character where the more you learn about him the more questions you have. This tactic of giving us small pieces of information about him, just enough to keep you interested continues throughout the season and of course you have the twist in episode 5 where its revealed that he’s the ‘villain’. And yes I did put villain in quotation marks because I personally feel like its too simplistic a term to use for the character. I do feel like he’s more than just a two dimensional villain and there is alot of complexity to the character and his actions just for him to be considered the ‘bad guy’. 

So lets have a look at some of those actions and think about what might have been his motivations and what he might have been thinking and feeling. I want to start with one of the more controversial of his actions and as a warning this is a sensitive topic. One of the earlier things we find out about is that General Kirigan gifted Genya to the Queen. I’ll be honest when I first watched this scene I was so caught up in the new character and what was going on in the scene that I didn’t think much about Genya’s comment about being a gift to the Queen but when I thought more on it later I realised that it was a rather dark idea, that you could gift a person to another person. It becomes especially darker later when you find out what Genya suffered at the King’s hands. I kept wondering a few things, one being why the General would gift a child to the Queen in the first place, two whether he knew what the King was when he put Genya under the royal family’s care and three if he didn’t why he didn’t remove Genya when he discovered what was happening with the King. I do feel that we didn’t get enough information in the show (I don’t know if there’s more information in the books) to really answer these questions but I’ll give it my best shot. Firstly why would the General gift a child to the Queen? Well I actually think this one is easy to answer, he needed a spy within the Royal Family. We know that Aleksander has suffered and been betrayed by a king in the past. He won the Old King a war and in turn that King turned on not just Aleksander but on his people too. I feel like Aleksander was blindsided when this happened and he just didn’t see it coming and because of that his people were slaughtered. It would make sense then that the General would want to keep an eye on the royals and get a warning if they were planning on turning on Grisha again. I also think this is why they refer to Genya as a ‘gift’. That was just the wording the General used to manipulate the royals. Here’s a gift that I am granting you out of respect and to honour and please you, is going to go over a lot better than hey here’s a spy I want in your household. Genya is essentially the General’s trojan horse. As for it being Genya as oppose to someone else, like a trained adult Grisha, well I think that’s because it would be easier to get the royals to take a child into their household than an adult, even as a gift. They will be alot less suspicious of a child than they would an adult. Also they might bond with a child and therefore treat them as more of a confidante as time goes on. As well as that Genya had a very specific set of Grisha abilities that made her perfect for a vain Queen. I may be wrong on this one but thinking back to my history education I think I remember being taught it was fairly common during the time period if a young lady was discovered to have a particularly special talent, like say singing for example, they may be given as a gift to the Queen as this may gain favour for the maiden’s family if she is made a lady in waiting. So if I am right about that then whilst it might seem strange to us it may have been a fairly normal practise to the characters. I mean Alina didn’t seem shocked when Genya said she was a gift to the queen it was learning about the King that upset her. 

Also I do wonder if some of the reason why he placed her with the royal family was because he believed she wouldn’t fit in with the other Grisha, she does say that she is almost as rare as Alina. I don’t know for sure but maybe the General suspected she would struggle with being different from the other Grisha and so decided the best way to help her grow and flourish was by giving a special mission of her own. 

Ok so what about question 2? Did he know what kind of person the King was when he placed Genya under his care. In my opinion I don’t think he did. I am basing this on how he always seems to want to make Grisha safe and wants them to flourish and also due to his actions with Alina when things between them became more intimate, we know that consent is something Aleksander cares about. So to me it would be out of character for him considering how much he cares about the Grisha and consent for him to knowingly put Genya under the King’s care whilst having the knowledge of what would happen to her. I feel like he would also consider it as a disrespect towards Grisha from the King for him to harm a Grisha woman like that especially as she was ‘gifted’ to them. Also when Alina herself asks a similar question in episode 7 when she says ‘did you think Genya was safe when you placed her under the King’s watch?’ To me I think the Darkling looked somewhat upset that she would think that he would knowingly put Genya in that situation. However I do think that by the time Alina was discovered and brought to the Little Palace he was aware of what was going on with Genya and the King as he makes that comment about Alina remaining at the Little Palace with him to train undisturbed. The way he said undisturbed made me think he thought the King might decide he wanted Alina and the General was warning the King away, making it clear that if he wanted the fold destroyed he would have to leave Alina alone. His actions here in protecting Alina also make me think that he didn’t know at the time of placing Genya with the Royal family what would happen to her. He doesn’t want to make the same mistake with Alina that he made with Genya. 

As for number 3, why didn’t he remove Genya from the King’s care once he did find out about what the King was doing? I saw a few comments about this. All of them saying the same that because he didn’t get Genya out he was as bad as the King and was complicit in what happened to Genya. But I actually think it’s more complicated than that. For one thing technically he did remove Genya from the King’s care when he had her poison the king and then made her Corporalnik. Though obviously he didn’t do it immediately. We’ve got no timescale as to when he find out so who knows how long they were planning this. But also there was one line in episode 3 that I think answers this question best, when the General says ‘I may lead the Second Army, but the King is still the King.’ Whilst the General is powerful he still only has so much power over the King. He needed the King’s permission just  to have Alina at the Little Palace and for her to train, which is what the demonstration Alina had to go through in episode 3 was all about. I don’t think the General had the power to just walk into the Grande Palace and take back Genya. The only way he was getting Genya out of there was by killing the King. Also correct me if I am wrong but I feel like what the King was doing to Genya was a large part of the General’s motivation for poisoning the King. I mean we weren’t given much information about the King other than what he was doing to Genya, which made me think that’s why he was poisoned as we weren’t told about any other bad things the King had done that might lead to the General deciding to poison him. I think once he found out what the King was doing to Genya he allowed her to be the one to carry out the poisoning knowing that she would want revenge rather than trying to remove her right away and potentially causing tension with the royal family and also making it harder if not impossible for Genya to be the one to exact her revenge on the King. I guess what I am saying is its possible that Genya was the one who wanted to stay because she wanted to be the one to kill the King. I mean that’s the impression I got from her conversation with Alina where she says ‘I waited for years for my chance at revenge.’ For all we know General Kirigan might have offered to remove her from the Royal household and she might have told him she wanted to be the one to help him take down the King. Whatever his motivations were and however much he may or may not have known I think we can all agree that him ‘gifting’ Genya to the Queen was a mistake. I personally feel like it was more of a similar mistake to when Alina burned the maps. She had good intentions, she did it to protect someone she cared about, but in the end she caused others harm. With Alina she wanted to protect Mal and her whole unit was killed. With Kirigan I think he hoped a spy in the Royal household would protect the Grisha but in the end Genya was harmed by the King. One question I do have is whether Kirigan feels any guilt over what happened to Genya, whether he regrets his decision. I mean we did see him protect Alina from the King when he insisted she remain at the Little Palace. But was that just because it was Alina, the Sun Summoner? What if it were someone else. For example say the King came to the General and said he had taken a fancy to Marie, or Nadia or Zoya, and asked for them to be sent to the Grande Palace, would the General have agreed or would he have made some excuse as to why they couldn’t go, maybe even sent them on an assignment to protect them? There’s no way we can really know the answers to these questions as we just don’t know enough about the situation. All we know is that the General ultimately decided to get rid of the King but even then we don’t know for certain what his motivations for that were.   

I suppose you could say that him plotting against the king and conspiring with the apparat to usurp the throne was also a ‘bad guy’ move. But to be honest after telling us everything that the King did and just generally presenting the royal family in a negative light, I was surprised that Alina had such a problem with what the General did. To me it didn’t make sense for her to be upset and using that against him. I mean after learning what he did to Genya I was fully on the Darkling’s side when it came to killing the King. If they were trying to present this as a ‘villain’ move on the Darkling’s part then they did a poor job of it because I completely understood where he was coming from with that one. 

I felt a similar way with his other big ‘villain’ move when he expanded The Fold into Novokribirsk. At first I found it hard to have sympathy for them considering literally a couple of minutes before we were being shown that the soldiers were planning on murdering everyone on the skiff as soon as it docked. Couple that with the fact that Zlatan had arranged to assassinate Alina and once again I found myself on the Darkling’s side, I mean screw Zlatan and his soldiers. It was another case of it wasn’t until I rewatched it that I realised the villainous part of what the Darkling did was that there were civilians in the city that were also killed. To be honest I do wish that the show had done a better job of showing those civilians to really get across the horror of what the Darkling did. I mean on a rewatch I could see a few civilians mixed in with the soldiers but they were blended in so were hard to spot. I guess that was the purpose of Zoya having family in the city, to tell the viewer that there were innocents there but I just don’t think it made enough of an impact. I feel like if they had focussed in on actual civilians running and being swallowed by the darkness as well as the West Ravkan soldiers it would have had a bigger and more horrific impact. Instead it just kind of came across as the bad guys who had been built up as being bad throughout the season, who were rebels and who had tried to kill the main character, were finally eliminated. Lets be real if Alina had been the one to take out those soldiers we would all have been cheering. Lets talk about Game of Thrones for a moment as an example (spoiler alert for GOT here) however you felt about the way Dany’s descent into madness was written one thing the writers did right in The Bells episode was focus on the civilians that Dany was killing on the ground. They cut away from Dany completely and stayed on the ground with her victims and so you get that impact of what she has done, you see the horror in what she has done and I think this is something that would have worked well with Shadow and Bone. If they had just cut away from the skiff for a scene showing the civilians, the victims that were being effected by what the Darkling was doing then I think I would have been more shocked and effected by his actions. 

Ok so lets focus back in on the character and talk about what his motivations might have been for Novokribirsk. Why did he expand the Fold and take out the city? Well again I don’t think its hard to answer that question. We have to remember that he is a General that is fighting a war on three fronts. He’s fighting the Fjerdans on one side, the Shu Han on another and then the cherry on top is that the West Ravkans are rising up in rebellion. It’s already hard enough having to fight two enemy countries without also having to split your forces again to deal with a rebellion. The General knows that they are already overstretched without having to split their force again to deal with Zlatan. So if you look at it from his point of view striking down Zlatan now before the rebellion gets too large is a tactical military move. Also the fact that it is such a violent move will act as a deterrent for any remaining rebels who might think of trying to restart Zlatan’s movement. As well as to Fjerda and Shu Han, a this is what we do to our own people when they act against us so think about what we might do to you if you cross us, kind of deal. As for the innocent civilians that were in the city well I think the Darkling would convince himself that it was a numbers game. He might have killed hundreds of civilians but as far as he sees it he has spared thousands of lives that would have been lost if they had gone to war with West Ravka. By now the General knows the cost of war, so to him sacrificing a few hundred civilians is worth the price of saving thousands of his soldiers. Of course there is another motivation for the General, one that is less military strategy and more personal and emotionally driven. As Kaz says he was a man fuelled by vengeance. These soldiers standing on the dock had turned their back on Grisha and even worse than that they had tried to kill Alina. In the scene where The Darkling is talking to the Conductor and the Conductor admits to agreeing to assassinate Alina for a million kruge you can see how angry this makes The Darkling. This idea that someone would harm Alina for something as material as money is unforgivable to him. I said in a previous post that I wondered if the General always planned to expand the fold into Novokribirsk and I actually think the answer to that is no he didn’t. I actually think he was trying to make up his mind about what to do about Zlatan and his rebels, its possible he had a number of strategies to go with and was trying to decide which to choose, with expanding the fold being the most extreme of them. I actually think this here is the moment he decides to go with that plan. As he walks away from the Conductor and the Conductor asks ‘tell me how I can help’ The Darkling replies ‘you already have.’ I actually think what he meant here was you’ve helped me make up my mind. Them daring to harm Alina was the linchpin.         

Which brings me to the next part of this analysis, The Darkling’s manipulation and relationship with Alina. One of the great things the show did with the Darkling’s character was making him so complex and nuanced that the audience is in very much the same position as Alina when that reveal is made about Aleksander being the Black Heretic. Just like Alina (if you haven’t read the books) you are left sort of blindsided. Also just like Alina the audience is left wondering how much of it was a manipulation. Was all of it part of his manipulation? Or were there some moments that were real? Did he care at all about Alina or was he just interested in her power? 

Well I will say this, while I do think he always planned to manipulate her, I don’t think he ever planned or tried to use seduction as part of that manipulation. I think we have to remember that he was waiting for the Sun Summoner for hundreds of years and I think he spent that time creating his plan for her and her power. We also have to remember that when he was creating this plan he was expecting to find a child. I think his plan was to earn her trust as a mentor and build a confidence between them. I think he planned to bring her up with his ideals, to bring her up believing the best thing was to use the fold as a weapon, to bring her up to always want to protect the Grisha and to bring her up to embrace her power. However this whole plan had a wrench thrown in it when he does finally find Alina and she’s not a child, she’s a grown woman and one that has been taught her whole life that the Sun Summoner’s purpose is to tear down the fold. Changing the ideals and beliefs of an adult is alot harder to do than a child. On top of that I think he does develop real feelings for her. But these feelings get in the way of his plans, which makes everything all the more complicated for him.        

Lets go to the moment they first meet. I do think right from the get go he is intrigued by her and mean I think when you watch the scene you are so focused on Alina and what she must be going through and feeling, how scared she must be being dragged in front of this powerful General that she’s only ever heard stories about, that we don’t think about what this moment meant to the General. I mean he has been waiting for this woman for so long. She could be the solution to all of his problems, a fix for all of his mistakes. She has been his one glimmer of hope in the vast darkness of eternity. And now she’s here in front of him. Jessie said in an interview that Alina felt a connection to Aleksander right from the beginning, but I think he felt a connection to her too. I think you can even see the moment they make that connection and it’s when he takes her wrist in the tent.

Once he takes her wrist they never break eye contact even as he draws her sleeve up higher, their eyes are glued to each other. Then they both pause for a few beats and again just stare at each other.

The tension between them is so thick it almost makes you want to yell get a room at the screen. It’s like they both suddenly felt something click between them, a oh I know you, kind of moment. But I also feel like Aleksander is a bit surprised by this feeling, he wasn’t expecting it. They don’t break eye contact until The General cuts her arm releasing her power and causing her to look down in surprise. But almost immediately Alina brings her eyes back to his. One kind of cool little detail I did notice is that you can see the reflection of the beam of light in both their eyes.

It’s like a thread connecting them both, I don’t know why but it sort of reminds me of that red thread of fate legend. But also with them both having dark eyes the beam of light reflected in them sort of reminds me of yin and yang. The other thing of note is the General’s facial expression when he sees her power. Whilst everyone else is looking on is awe and surprise, he looks almost content, definitely happy and maybe even a bit hopeful. To me he kind of looks like he’s just had all his prayers answered. 

I think Kirigan is further intrigued by Alina in episode two when she talks back to him with that rant about maybe he hasn’t found anyone with her power because they didn’t want to be found. I think its the first time in a long while that anyone has stood up to him and not just said yes sir. I actually found it really comical how surprised he was when she said no to him. You just know he hasn’t heard that word much in recent lifetimes. But I do think this plants those first seeds of him seeing her as an equal to him. I think this is where he starts to see her as not someone to bow at his feet but someone who belongs at his side. Then when she confesses that she hid from the testers because she didn’t want to feel even more alone I think he really saw something of himself in her. I mean you can see his facial expression shift. I think this furthers his idea that she is meant to be at his side, that she is the same as him and I think even at this early stage he begins to hope that maybe she is someone who will understand him as no one else ever has. In that moment he is determined to make sure she doesn’t ever feel alone again and that is why he tells her ‘you are Grisha, you are not alone.’ You can see from the passion in his voice when he says it that this is something very personal to him. 

However despite this connection he feels to her and the care I think he has for her too, he does manipulate her. I think one of the more obvious manipulations happens in episode 4 when he takes her to the fountain. Something that is worth noting is that before setting out on their ride Aleksander takes off his Kefta. Their Keftas in the show are presented as their armour, so I think it was a very deliberate move on his part to sort of send the message to her, look I’m taking my armour off for you and I am being vulnerable and open to you. He furthers this by giving her his name to create this familiarity between them. Then he takes her to a place that is personal to him and then he really gets into his manipulation game. Here’s the thing though, I feel like most of the time when we think of manipulation we think of lies. But sometimes the best way to manipulate a person is through twisting the truth and I think this is what he does here. From their conversations so far I think he has figured out that Alina feels like an outsider and that she fears being alone and not fitting in. I definitely think he uses this information to manipulate her by telling her the story about how he used to go to the fountain as a boy after he discovered he was descended from the most hated Grisha in Ravka and wished to be anybody else. He knows that Alina will respond to this story, that it will make her feel sympathy for him and also make her feel like he is someone who understands her and therefore someone she can trust and rely on. He is also most definitely being deceitful in that he knows she thinks he is talking about being related to the Black Heretic when in fact he is the Black Heretic. However that doesn’t mean that what he said was untrue. I really do think he used to go there as a boy and wish to be someone else. As for being the descendant of the most hated Grisha in Ravka well my theory there is that he could actually be talking about Morozova. In the flashback in episode 7 Aleksander says that he and Baghra are his descendants and that means that if he created the amplifiers than Aleksander could create an army. Baghra gives the warning that Aleksander will die like Morozova. This makes me think that Morozova died in quite an unpleasant way, maybe even killed because he was feared and hated. I mean sure the Black Heretic is the most hated Grisha in all of Ravka now, but whose to say there wasn’t someone who came before him? Another Grisha who was hated like the Black Heretic is now. And maybe when Aleksander was a boy he discovered he was the descendant of Morozova and that was a burden on him, so much so that he wished he was someone else. 

I also think he was being genuine when he talked about how he is never seen as the solution only a reminder of the problem. I mean we’ve seen this ourselves in episode one its one of the first things we learn about him, that he can’t bring down the fold. I also think he’s being truthful when he says they always need someone to blame but again he’s twisting this truth. Alina thinks he means he is being unjustly blamed for not being able to fix the Fold but I think he actually is talking about how the Old King turned on him. I’m also sure over the years many people have blamed him and the Grisha for all the ills the world has suffered. But I do think he really meant it when he told her that he wouldn’t let the world make her the new Heretic. I think making sure that doesn’t happen is something he cares deeply about and I think it shows that he does have some care for her that he is so determined that she doesn’t go through what he did with the world turning on him. 

Slight diversion here but I do want to talk about whether or not this hatred the world has for him is justified, I mean he did create the fold and that fold has killed alot of people since its creation. So surely just the fact that he created the fold is enough to solidify him as the villain. Well I think that depends on why he created the fold. I mean we get three different versions of how and why the Fold was created. The first one we hear is in episode 4 when Alina tells us the story that is taught to children in school. They say that history is written by the victors, and whilst I personally don’t think there were any victors in the creation of the fold, The Black Heretic disappeared with its creation, presumed to be dead, so the Old King probably considered himself the victor and was left to decide the history. Therefore this story was most likely the Old King’s version of events. In this version of the story it talks about how the Darkling hungered for more power after being made the Kings military advisor and this made the king fear that the Darkling would try to overthrow him. So he put a bounty on his head and that of anyone who stood by him. Eventually the Heretic realised he was outnumbered and decided to create an army using forbidden science. But he failed, creating the fold and killing himself and countless others. The second version we get is from Baghra and it is similar to this one. She says that he created the Fold to use as a weapon, that he tried making an army with merzost and that he didn’t think about what that would do to the people who lived there, that it turned the men, women and children into the Volcra. That she had warned him there would be a price and that he didn’t listen. She also says that he took a noble’s name to hide after. Baghra’s version paints Aleksander as power hungry and as someone who will stop at nothing to get what he wants no matter the cost. But there are somethings I think its worth noting about her version. The first is that it is very brief, sort of like the cliff notes version, as they are in a hurry and she needs to get Alina out of there pronto. She doesn’t have time to go into all the details so she tells her enough to convince her to leave. Which brings me to my second point, Baghra’s motivation here is to get Alina to flee, so logically the best way to do that is to tell her the worst parts of the story and leave out anything that might make Alina feel sympathetic towards Aleksander and therefore hesitate about leaving. Another thing to remember is that Baghra whilst she might know somethings wasn’t there for a lot of it, she didn’t see Luda killed by the soldiers just knows that she was killed and she didn’t witness the confrontation between Aleksander and the soldiers. However what she did see likely had an effect on her. There is one moment in particular during Baghra’s story where she becomes emotional and choked up, there are tears in her eyes and you just know she is reliving a bad memory and that is when she talks about the women and children who were turned into the Volcra alongside the soldiers. Think for a moment about where Baghra was when the fold was created. She was inside the sanctuary with the women and children who were hiding from the soldiers. Which means that she would have witnessed them turning into the Volcra which must have been a horrifying scene. 

Eventually we get to episode 7 and we learn what really happened when the fold was created and the story is more tragic that first told. I mean first you have the whole situation with Luda. He obviously loved her deeply and I can only imagine how painful it must have been to see her murdered right in front of him and to feel that guilt of her dying because she was protecting him. I mean the words ‘just mortal’ now make me want to burst out crying anytime I hear them. Then he gets to the sanctuary and there’s all these Grisha there that need protecting. I think he feels a responsibility for them. Then his mother reminds him that they are not fighters, they make things. Which gives him the idea of creating an army using merzost. It is worth pointing out here that when telling the tale to Alina Baghra says that she warned Aleksander that there would be a price for using merzost, but when you actually see the conversation what she says is that whilst the small science feeds them merzost feeds on them. This suggests that the price to be paid is by him. So yes he was aware there would be a price but he assumed he would be the one paying it. I think if he knew that the people inside the sanctuary would be turned into Volcra he might not have gone through with it. This is another thing that makes the story even more tragic. Aleksander was driven to create his own army by his wish to protect his people, but he lost control and ended up destroying the very people he was trying so hard to protect. Another thing I noticed when Alina is telling the story of the heretic in episode four when she gets to the part about the Heretic being killed along with countless other you can hear what sound like screams in the background, also Aleksander looks really sad and guilty. It is also right after that he says he had devoted his life to undoing the great sin aka the creation of the fold. We see this look of guilt again when Alina confronts him in episode 7 about being the one to create the fold and therefore responsible for the deaths of her friends and parents. You see him look to the floor.

 I really do think that he has alot of guilt about the fold, he sees it as a mistake.  We see both Baghra and Alina make the claim, the fold was no mistake. But in episode 7 we learn that it was, Aleksander did not deliberately set out to create the fold. It wasn't his intention. It seems to me that he wanted to bend the will of the soldiers to his, to make them his own army, but I think he lost control due to the emotional state he was in at the time. I mean right before the soldiers were threatening to murder all the people inside, including his mother, and were mocking him about Luda’s death. He was grieving, he was angry and he was fearful for his people. We were told the fold was born out of greed but lets be real it was born out of grief and out of pain and anger and fear. 

So if he considers it such a big mistake why doesn’t he want to tear it down? Well I think its two fold. On one hand he might be afraid of what he’ll see. It’s like Kaz says to Zoya ‘it’s dangerous to go looking for the dead. What you see may haunt you for the rest of your days.’ Tearing down the fold will reveal all the destruction he caused to the land and to the people who lived there, he’d have to really confront what he did to his own people. But I think another motivator is what he said about undoing the great sin. I think he thinks if he makes the fold useful then at least it would have made the ‘deaths’ of his people mean something somehow. If creating the fold cost them their lives then maybe by making it a weapon that can be used to protect Grisha will make their ‘deaths’ a worthwhile sacrifice.

Ok so diversion over, lets go back to the Darklina relationship and how much of his actions were a manipulation. We’ve already established that he was being manipulative when taking her to the fountain and was telling her twisted truths. But if we stick with episode 4 there’s the scene where she comes to visit him at night in the war room. This whole scene I actually think he was being completely genuine. I don’t think any of it was part of his manipulation of her. First off is the way they are both dressed. They are both in their nightclothes which gives this idea of them being more intimate and more exposed to each other. I said above that the Kefta is seen as the Grisha’s armour, well here neither one of them are wearing their Kefta. They have both taken off their armour and are letting each other in. When Alina first finds him he is looking over the war map and you can see that he looks troubled, which you know fair enough considering he’s fighting a war on two fronts, having to deal with getting supplies through the fold and how to deal with the rebels. I love the way he looks at Alina when she comes in though, its just so soft and I feel like he feels instantly calmer when he sees her. But then he starts talking about how he’s been fighting the war alone and lost friends, about how their own people are turning on Grisha just as their kin once did and he is clearly thinking back to when the Old King was hunting him and his people. When the shadows start creeping in I think his pain is very real, I don’t think this was an act at all and once again if you listen closely you can hear those faint screams in the background. Then Alina dispels the shadows with her light and repeats his words back to him, ‘you are not alone.’ I think in this moment he truly does feel like he’s not alone. That he has found someone who understands him and who is his equal, who is like him. So he reaches out and cups her face and tells her he’s been waiting for her a long time. But then she pulls away and says she should go. I think Aleksander is afraid at this moment that he has frightened her away or that he misinterpreted the situation and he becomes very confused. So when she lingers at the door he goes to it and contemplates calling her back, just as she struggles with whether she should go back. But then she walks away and I think he thinks that maybe he was wrong and she doesn’t feel the same as him and he is a little angry with himself for losing focus and for feeling something for her and so he locks the door between them.  

Another question I asked myself was whether he always intended to put the stag collar on her and to control her powers. In my opinion this one has a bit of a yes and a no answer. I think he kept changing his mind. He clearly knew that by killing the Stag and putting the amplifier on her he would gain control of her powers. As I said early I think his first draft of the plan, shall we say, was to find the Sun Summoner as a child, to gain her trust as her mentor and teach her that the Fold is a weapon to be used as opposed to something that needs to be torn down. If he had found her as a child he would have had a lot more control over her and could shape her into what he wanted. However when they find the Sun Summoner she’s an adult and believes that its her fate to tear down the fold so he has to do a rework of his plan. On top of that he’s got this problem that she clearly doesn’t want to be the Sun Summoner she has no interest in saving anyone and she just wants to go back to being a mapmaker in the First Army. I think it is during that speech where she talks about him transferring her power to someone else that he starts to look into whether that is possible. But as he gets to know her more I think this changes again and he starts to feel things for her and I think he starts to believe that they want the same things and that maybe taking control of her powers won’t be necessary. I think the turning point for him is in episode 5. In the breakdown video of their first kiss Jessie says Alina goes to the General’s rooms because of what happened the night before in the war room where they had a moment in episode 4. Alina wasn’t sure what that moment meant and so she was seeking out Aleksander because she was intrigued and wanted to know if there was something there. Aleksander is once again clearly happy to see her but I do feel like there is some awkwardness there because of what happened in episode 4 and because he feels like he had misinterpreted things and maybe was too intense with her. It’s an interesting dynamic because as Jessie says in that video in this moment he is the vulnerable one. One moment in particular that I think shows this vulnerability is right after she helps him into his Kefta. Again going back to the whole the Kefta is armour thing. When Alina first enters the room like in episode 4 she is wearing her dressing gown she has come to him with her armour off so to speak. He is also out of his Kefta and this early conversation is playful where they are joking about Ivan and the Volcra. But after she puts the Kefta on him is when his mood shifts a little and you see him kind of tug the Kefta tighter around himself. I feel like he was trying to protect himself because the more time he spends with her the more vulnerable and confused he feels, he’s feeling alot of feelings he hasn’t felt in a long time and I think he knows by now that he is well on his way to falling in love with her and this scares him a bit because he has lost loves in the past. Him putting the Kefta back on is like him attempting to put that armour back on. There is another way of looking at it too though. It’s worth noting that on this occasion Alina is the one helping him put the armour/Kefta on, like she is the one giving him protection. Then he turns around Alina is alot closer then he anticipated and you can actually see him struggling to even form words. Then she leans in close to him like she's about to kiss him but changes her mind and walks into the other room leaving our poor guy more confused than ever. Then Alina makes the speech about how she finally feels like she is part of something bigger and that they can offer hope to the Grisha and to Ravkans. In this moment our girl was talking straight to our boy’s heart. I think this is all he has ever wanted to hear her say, especially the ‘we can offer hope.’ I think he really means it when he says it means a lot to him and you can hear the passion in his voice when he says ‘you mean a lot.’ Of course when she looks down he once again becomes afraid he’s overstepped, gone too far and so he tries to backtrack with ‘to everyone’. And well we all know what happens next. Alina kisses him and as he says after he is surprised and not many people do surprise him. I think there is something about this woman that just makes him lose all his senses until his whole world becomes about her. I feel like throughout episode 5 Aleksander feels like he’s gotten everything he’s ever wanted. Because maybe she does feel the same way he does, maybe she wants the same things he does, maybe he has found his life partner, another immortal who will always be by his side, finally he’ll never have to feel alone again. I think the moment I decided this fool was definitely in love with Alina was the look on his face when she enters the room and he sees her in his colours for the first time. After watching her demonstration I think he does see her as his equal. He’s in complete awe of her and the only time he looks away is to look at the Monarchs to see their reaction. Basically from the moment Alina kisses him to this moment where he is seeing her take command of the room and truly showing her power, having people bow to her, Aleksander is living his best life, he’s on cloud nine. 

Then he gets word that someone has located the stag. We don’t see the scene where he gets informed of this but you can imagine he probably can’t believe his luck. Not only are things perfect between him and Alina but now someone has found the amplifier. But I feel like he gets a bit of a reality check when he discovers that Mal is the one who found the stag and he’s now here in the Little Palace. I feel like Aleksander sort of came crashing down to earth here and realised he might have a bit of a problem. Once again he’s having to do a quick, rapid, rework of his plan. Which brings us to another moment where the Darkling is being manipulative. He uses Mal to find out what Alina’s favourite flower is. I mean I suppose you could argue that he’s only doing what every other person does when they want to get a gift for their crush and don’t know what would be best, ask the best friend. But all jokes aside this move was clearly calculative on The Darkling’s part. But I couldn’t help but wonder why he decided to use the Irises. What was his motivation here. It’s clear that he has already won Alina over seeing as she was kissing him not to long ago. Well I said earlier that I think he changed his mind about using the collar on her. I do think after their conversation in episode 2 where she talks about how she didn’t want any of it and could he transfer it he thought she was going to be a problem and difficult so maybe he should look into finding a way of controlling her power. In the beginning she was focussed on her old life and I feel like she didn’t have much loyalty or care for the Grisha, it took her awhile to accept who she was and she was also struggling to use her powers. All she wanted was to go back to Mal and I think this may be why, or at least part of the reason why The General takes their letters. For one he didn’t want her to go back to him and so making her think that Mal didn’t care would encourage her stay put and discourage any ideas of leaving. I mean given her comment in episode 3 where Alina asks Genya if anyone had ever escaped the Little Palace, which the General overheard, its not that surprising that he would decide to confiscate any of her correspondence out of the Palace in case she was organising a breakout with Mal. Secondly as I said she was having trouble using her powers and I think after reading the letters maybe he figures out that its because of Mal that she is struggling, so he either stopped the letters because he wanted her to continue feeling abandoned by Mal and therefore he was hoping she would shift her dependence onto him or because he knew if she let go of Mal then she would be able to control her power more and more power for Alina means more power for him to control. This was all very manipulative on his part and obviously not the actions of someone who cares about Alina’s feelings but at this point she wasn’t Alina to him she was the Sun Summoner, a tool to be used and he was thinking as a General who had people and a whole country to protect and if that meant putting the collar on this stranger then so be it. I think he set out to win her trust to make it easier for him to put that collar on her when the time came. But then as he got to know her more, started catching feelings for her and after their conversation in episode 5, I think he decided that maybe he wouldn’t need to use the collar after all. My theory is that he got her the flowers and he took her to the war room instead of the dinner because he was planning to tell her some of the truth. I don’t think he was going to tell her about who he really was and about him being the Fold’s creator but I do think its possible that he intended to tell her about the Stag and maybe even try to convince her about using the Fold as a weapon. So I think he just wanted to put her in as good a mood as he could if that makes sense, sweeten her up before he brought it up. Also telling her about the Stag means telling her about Mal. I think he actually felt a little threatened by Mal because having read their letters he knows how she feels about Mal. So he wants her attention as much on him as possible. I think he very much felt like his dream was slipping away. As for the make out on the war table moment, that could have also been an attempt to keep her sweet on him like the irises. But as I’ve said before Aleksander seems to lose all his senses when he’s with Alina. When he’s with her the only thing he’s focused on is her, and I personally think it was just a case of he really wanted to kiss her. Some of it might also have been to reassure himself that those feelings between them were real, especially now that Mal has shown up. I mean they are both so giddy and happy when they break apart for him to answer the door that I find it difficult to believe that the whole kiss was a cold manipulation, he was grinning like a school boy. My favourite kiss between them (as steamy as their make out session was) was actually the one where he comes back to kiss her one last time. This is right after he has learnt that she was the target of an attack that happened inside of his Palace, which is the one place where his people are supposed to be safe. I think in that moment he just needed to reassure himself that she is safe, you can see his desperation in the kiss. There was just something so soft and pure about it. If I am sure about anything is that one was definitely real, I may have small doubts about the other kisses but that one kiss was 100% true.   

Things only get worse for Aleksander in episode 6 when he realises that Alina is missing. I think how he behaves in this episode tells us alot about how he really feels about Alina. He becomes somewhat unhinged when she goes missing and only becomes more so the longer she is gone from him. His sole focus is on her and finding her, to the point where he kind of forgets about anything else as we see when Fedyor comes to report about Nina, The General has completely forgotten there were other missions and things he was dealing with. Later when he calls Zoya to tell her to prepare a team to track down ‘Alina’s abductors’ and she puts forward the suggestion that Alina ran by herself, he doesn’t even consider it a possibility. The idea that she would willingly leave him is just too hard for him to wrap his head around because as he says to Zoya he is sure he knows exactly how she feels. He is usually the composed, unfazed General but he very much snaps at this moment and I think reveals more than he intended to Zoya, who clearly looks surprised by his outburst. He even says himself with Alina gone he’s not himself, he’s feeling unbalanced and tense without her. So when Zoya offers to help him relax he tells her that he’ll relax when he has Alina. I think its important as well that he says Alina and not the Sun Summoner. It’s not the Sun Summoner he’s lost without its Alina. When he finally catches up with Kaz and is told that Alina fled on her own you can see how shocked he is at this.

 And even then he has trouble believing it because he once again asks where she is and its not until the line ‘It was pretty clear she wasn’t interested in being a captive any more’ that it begins to set in for him and you see his shadows creep in. After you can see the heartbreak set in and then the anger.

 This anger only grows when he learns that she is with Mal and that she is going after the Stag. I think he very much feels like everything has been snatched away from him in a blink of an eye. I think he is angry that he was blindsided by it and he’s angry that he let his feelings for her cloud his judgement and distract him from his plans. Because of his feelings for her he might now have ruined all his plans and, as he would see it, risked the safety of the Grisha in doing so. Naturally its back to plan A of forcing the collar on her, because no matter how he feels about her he can’t let that distract him from his mission to protect the Grisha again. 

However no matter how angry he is at her and how hurt is is that she ran from him, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t care about her. I see alot of arguments that he can’t have loved Alina because you can’t hurt someone you love like he did when he put the collar on her. But I’m calling BS on that one now because the people you love are the people who can hurt you the most, especially when they are hurt or angry. It doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t love you it just means they are human and make mistakes. However that doesn’t mean you should tolerate those mistakes or brush them under the rug, absolutely they should be called out for them and held accountable for them and I am really glad that Alina does do this. The Darkling's anger at her is what drives him to find her and to kill the stag himself so he can collar her and I think this anger builds up whilst he is away from her, again showing how unhinged he has become without her. But I feel like some of that anger ebbs away a bit when he does find her and once she is in front of him again. That moment when he finds her and the stag and Mal is hurt and he calls out to her that she can’t save them, that as powerful as she is she does not have the power to heal. He is obviously thinking back to Luda here. Because as powerful as he was he was not powerful enough to save her, in that moment he was utterly powerless to keep her from dying. I think despite how hurt he is he cares about her too much to watch her go through the same pain and grief he did which is why he offers to heal Mal if she gives him the Stag. The similarities between the two scenes (the one with Alina, mal and the Stag and the one with Aleksander, Luda and the king’s men) are clear and I think really have an effect on Aleksander. I think when he says that Mal was only protecting Miss Starkov there are two interesting points. One is the use of the term Miss Starkov. This is a name he mostly called her when they barely knew each other and I think he is trying to distance himself from her again by making things more formal between them. The other thing is that it draws a parallel between both Mal and Luda. Both Mal and Luda were just trying to protect the people they love and Aleksander clearly doesn’t think either one of them deserved to die for it so he lets Mal live. 

Another scene I want to talk about real quick is the one right before he puts the collar on her. This scene is eerily similar to when they first meet. Once again they are back in a tent. Once again the scene starts with the Darkling’s back to her and with Alina in the hands of a guard/s. I said before that I think alot of the reason why he decides to collar her is because she doesn’t share his views and he feels like he needs to control her so he can weaponize the fold and save his people. That he was angry at himself for believing she might be his equal and share his goals. I think this scene where he talks to her shows that. The fact that he lowers himself to her level I think shows that he does see her as an equal. Then he talks about how together they could end all wars and protect their own and asks isn’t that what she wants. I think he is still clinging to that belief that he wasn’t wrong and that they did want the same things and maybe some part of him was still hoping he might not need to use the collar. But then she asks if they are going to tear down the fold and you can see the disappointment on his face because he understands now that she won’t see it his way. So instead he deflects the question and I think this is the moment that cements his choice to collar her.  

Further evidence that he does still care about Alina comes when he puts the collar on her. This is obviously a very distressing and gruesome scene. What he is doing is obviously wrong and I think deep down he knows it too. He can’t bear to look at her as it happens and so her turns away and its the second time he does as he also looks away in guilt when he threatens Mal. I don’t think he can handle her looking at him like he’s a monster and he can’t cope with seeing the betrayal and hurt in her eyes. It is also worth noting that I think part of the reason why he goes through with putting the amplifier on her is like he said to Mal, he thinks that over the years she will come to forgive him. Now this conversation where he talks about how she might take years to forgive him but he had patience also tells us that the fact that he is hoping for forgiveness shows that he knows what he is doing to her is wrong, that it is something that will require forgiveness. When he comes to see her later in her tent, can we just talk for a moment how nice that tent was, I mean he really went all out for her with lace and flowers like he somehow thought that would make up for him fusing a antler into her collar bone, but again even the fact that he gives her all these nice things shows that he wants that forgiveness and the way he approaches her as well is cautiously, like you would a wounded animal. He knows he’s hurt her and made her angry so he comes in with sweet words of compliments, telling her how special she is, and very quickly comes to know that she’s not having any of it. I mean that look she gives him when he first comes in, if looks could kill he’d be six feet under now. But I really do think he did go to her just because he wanted to talk to her, despite his words to Mal about having the patience to wait however many years it will take for her to forgive him, he wants to fix things between them now. He doesn’t want her to be angry with him and he doesn’t want her to be in pain. He’s desperate to get back what they had in episode 5. Also I think its important that we remember that until that conversation with her in the tent he didn’t know that she had discovered who he really was, so when she ran he believed that she had ran because she wanted to be with Mal which I think contributed to his anger at her and his feeling of betrayal. He couldn’t understand why she would want to be with someone who he believes never appreciated who she really was and who is mortal and will eventually just be a blip in her very long lifetime, instead of being with him who is her equal and immortal like her. This is another occasion where I feel like he gets a bit of a reality check and realises that she didn’t run because of Mal, she ran because of his own lies. So all that anger he felt at her ‘betrayal’ was unjust. But then I think he feels a different sense of betrayal in how easily she believed Baghra. I mean looking at it from his point of view she didn’t come to him and ask for his side of the story or demand an explanation she just trusted Baghra and ran. He is clearly desperate to make her understand and you can see his composure begin to fail as he stands and tells her that everything he is ever done has been to make Grisha and Ravka safer. I really do think that line was true, he really does believe that what he’s doing is the right thing for his people and his country. You can feel his frustration and desperation continuing to build throughout the scene as he pretty much pleads with her to understand and can see that she doesn’t. I think the part that really hurts him though is when she says ‘we could have had this, all of it. You could have made me your equal, instead you made me this.’ This line is so powerful and I think its at this moment that he realises just how badly he has messed up. To be told that his actions are the reason why he hasn’t got her, the one thing he wants more than anything else in the world right now. Also the line of making her his equal I think would have hit him hard because he did see her as his equal and so I think he’s surprised that she believes that he didn’t make her his equal and then when she says ‘instead you made me this’ he realises that whilst he might have seen her as his equal he wasn’t treating her as one. His need for control made her a slave to him and I really think that in this moment he is realising that, I genuinely think this dumbass got so caught up in his own dream of what the two of them together could be that he didn’t realise that whilst he thought he was protecting her and helping her grow into this saviour for their people he was taking away her choices and he was making her feel like a captive, the dummy didn’t think to ask how she felt about any of it because he assumed he already knew, it was the same as what he wanted, to protect their country and people. So his anger when he says the line ‘fine make me your villain’ isn’t just directed at her but himself too. It’s not just his hurt and anger that she doesn’t understand his reasons and that she isn’t seeing it his way, it’s also because he knows it was his own actions that lead him to that moment when the woman he loves is standing in front of him and looking at him like he is a monster. He can’t go back and he can’t undo it and worse than that he can’t seem to get her to understand why he did it. I think he feels trapped and so the only thing he can be to her now is her villain. 

It’s after this conversation that his demeanour towards her changes and you can see that he sort of stops trying to win her over. He’s not as gentle with her, I mean he ties her to the deck of the skiff and answers mockingly when she points out it’s not a good look for him with the ambassadors. I did notice though that after that conversation he seems to have trouble looking at her. When they are walking to the skiff and he tells her that Mal is being held captive and will be released if she does her part, he isn’t looking at her but straight ahead and this is something he does alot when he is threatening Mal. The moment when he takes off her cloak he does glance down at her. I seen alot of debate about that scene, as it does come across as having a bit of sexual tension in it and some people thought it was a rather sexy scene whereas others pointed out that he was holding her captive and mocking her. Me personally I actually think its both. People talk about how it has to be one or the other. But yes in that scene he is holding her captive and that part’s not sexy but there is a moment where I feel like he still feels that draw to her. Before reaching up to undo her cloak it seems to me like a hesitates for a moment. When he goes to whisper in her ear that he doubts they’ll notice her feet and I think he feels that pull and that attraction to her and he is really close to her, I don’t think he’s been that close to her since the war room in episode 5. You can see him lean slightly towards her and I think he really is struggling with the desire he feels for her which is why he steps back with the cloak rather forcefully, like he's having to force himself away from her again. It kind of reminded me of the scene where she helped him into his Kefta. So no the situation itself is not sexy but I do still think there is tension in the scene because the attraction they feel for each other didn’t just disappear despite how hurt and angry they are at each other. It’s like their words are saying one thing but their body language is saying another. 

When they are in the Fold again at first The Darkling avoids looking at her particularly when he is forcing her to use her power to create the tunnel of light. His focus is on The Fold. Again I think this shows that he is determined to not let his feelings for her get in the way for his goals, yet he knows he is taking away her free will and her choice and that’s hurting her so he can’t really stand to look at her. Its the same when she asks to tear down the fold and he answers why would they destroy the best weapon they have. Again he doesn’t look at her when he says it because he knows that he deceived her by letting her believe that was what they were going to do and he doesn’t want to see the disappointment and betrayal in her eyes. Again this is something he does alot and look, I love The Darkling’s character, I do, but that doesn’t mean I can’t recognise his flaws and for me I kind of saw him as a coward for this. I mean if you are going to deceive and manipulate a person and force them to do something you know they don’t want to do, then at least have the decency to look at them. He does however look at her when she tries to save Novokribirsk after he lets the fold consume it. He stops her and you can see the anger when he says they are traitors who tried to kill her and that this action was retribution. I think he hates the fact that she is trying to save the very people who tried to hurt her. But again he looks away from her when he sees the way she is looking at him and how horrified she is by what he has done. 

Their very last interaction is when she uses the dagger to cut the amplifier from his hand and shows him what she is and that she’s the one the stag chose. He sees this as her betraying their people which is interesting because at the end of the episode Alina says that Kirigan turned on his own people. So they both believe the other turned on their own people, the problem here is that I feel like Alina feels more loyalty towards the non Grisha Ravkans, she still sees them as more her people due to spending more time as just a ordinary mapmaker then as Grisha but the Darkling has more loyalty towards the Grisha. Its like how you know parents aren’t suppose to have a favourite child but we all know they do. Well I feel like the Ravkans are Alina’s favourite child and the Grisha are the Darkling’s. Of course they still care about the other but their ‘favourite’ is their priority if that makes sense. By the end of the season when we see the Darkling emerge from the fold I think he is feeling very angry and very betrayed by Alina, however I actually think the fact that she bested him has only made him look at her as even more of an equal than before. Not only is she someone who will stand up to him but now she has become someone who can match him. I do think he’s in this very complicated situation where he is on an opposite to the person he believes is essentially his soulmate. However as much as I think he does love her I still think he will put his people above her and so will continue to act in what he considers to be the best interests of his people. It also seems like he’s got some new powers and was able to create shadow soldiers which again is interesting because he basically just accomplished what he meant to do in the first place when he created the fold, he’s created his own army. 

Ok so that’s all for now to be honest I could talk about the Darkling forever but I think this is already long enough so if you have read all the way to the end thank you for your time. I am thinking of doing other character analysis posts so keep an eye for that if its something that interests you, I think I might do Alina next. I’ll also post my thoughts on the book once I’ve read it.        

[neverfailtolive]

Rant (Part 2): Alina + the ending

Alina Starkov is a character that many people love and many people hate, it is sort of one or the other. For me Alina is a very meh character. Her story is definitely nothing new: a girl who thought she was normal but in reality is much more. Even when the book was first published, this trope was old. Books like Percy Jackson, Harry Potter, the mortal instruments, Twilight and others (we could also add the Hunger Games but there the situation is a bit different), had already used the trope and had been very successful. So even at the time, such protagonists was not anything new, however who doesn't like a good underdog? a normal person like any of us, maybe a bit bruised and overlooked, that becomes so much more?

In the first book I really didn't mind Alina. I felt for her when Mal did not see her as anything more than a good friend, and I certainly understood her attraction to the Darkling. All the events of the first book are also understandable considering her young age. The problems start arising in the second book.

First of all, I do think that it was a mistake not letting more time pass in between the ending of the first book and the start of the second. It would have been good to let Alina mature some more and come to the realisation that she wanted to go back and save Ravka rather than being forced into it. Apart from this, and the arrival of the Darkling that is so easily defeated despite being so powerful, making the scene almost laughable, the problem with Alina is that she doesn't grow as a character she doesn’t change from the young powerless girl who follows everybody’a orders.

She is thrown in this world of responsibilities and sure it may seem like she takes them on well but she really doesn't. Bardugo wanted to develop a whole "power makes one greedy" storyline but, with the exception of her greed for the amplifiers, we never see Alina take power for herself, at least not in a significant way. The only example I could think of is taking the leadership of the Second Army, but even there once it's taken, and once she declares that all Grisha should be seated together (which although something fair, between all the problems that the grisha have to face it seems like the least important), we don't see her take strategic choices or political choices. We don't see her become the powerful and wise and knowledgeable leader that can make choices for a whole nation. All the political talks come from Nikolai. We never see her truly becoming the queen that everybody says she is. Even in the third book, she never truly realises the type of power that comes from a religious congregation and her escape from the apparat isn’t even fully her doing.

In R&R we can see some changes in the character in the sense that she does become more obsessed with the amplifiers but even there, as @darklingswhore says, she really did not have a choice in that matter. The whole plotline of power = greed = bad could have been made much stronger if she started becoming darker, like truly darker (similarly to how ti happens to the protagonist of the young elite by Marie Lu) not only saying sentences like "I will cut the tongue of whoever talks badly about my friend" (Genya). Okay she kills Mal for the greater good but he comes back so really there is no true consequence to her actions. To make the storyline more credible we should have seen her take power. A young orphan with nothing that suddenly has influence and thirst for power (which is how bardugo wanted us to see her) should want to feel the power, she should want to be at the head of nations, she should not want to run away or delegate. One of the hard choices she made was to let go of Mal and all that was ruined by the ending. and even there i would have been happy even if she didn’t turn all dark and twisty. even if she had just accepted her powers and influence it would have been better than her refusing to take power for herself and her people

and let's talk about the ending. By taking her powers away from Alina, the author is removing any sort of moral lesson that could be taken from the story. Bardugo does not teach about learning to control one's dark side, nor about moderation, both things that everybody should learn. It's like with fast food: its not about completely avoiding it, its about eating in moderation. she just teaches about taking away which i don’t love.

The fact that she goes back with Mal I think it is one of the worst parts. The moment in which she lets Mal go is a big moment of self reflection and understanding, a moment of growth. They have become too different. But by going back it is basically saying that as long as Alina is normal then the relationship can work but if she’s powerful then not. it’s completely eliminating the moment of growth which she has experienced before and i honestly did not like it. even with Alina losing her powers it would have been better if she had just learned how to ✨be special✨ on her own without mal.

This post is becoming messy so I’ll just leave it at this but all I want to say is not that I dislike Aline as a character, only that she’s too much of a ya character for the type of story that bardugo was trying to achieve. we never see her darkness and accompany her as she learns to control it and that was a poor writing choice.

[sirenprincess15]

Please Don't Leave Me Chapter 15

Title: Please Don’t Leave Me

Author: SirenPrincess

Description: What if Aleksander hadn’t answered the door when Ivan interrupted the war room kissing? What if Aleksander and Alina had a bit more time to get to know each other before Baghra told her his true identity? Alina is the only one who can comfort Aleksander through his nightmares. Will she leave once she knows who he is?

This story is based on the show version and features a soft on the inside, hard on the outside Aleksander with an emphasis on emotional hurt/comfort and angst. If you are looking for lots of hurt!Aleksander thoughts, then this story is for you. Mal exists but pretty much solely to cause Aleksander some angst. Don’t worry. It will be a Darklina ending.

Chapter 1 is a missing scene at the end of Ep 4, and Chapter 2 takes place alongside Ep 5 and then diverges from canon there.

Pairings: Aleksander Morozova/Alina Starkov, bits of Ivan/Fedyor

Rating: PG-13

Warnings: Grisha are oppressed in this universe, and I don’t shy away from showing the horrors of that. There may eventually be mentions of canon-typical torture (Fjerdan pyres), death of family members, and cruelty to Grisha children. It’s not the focus, but that backdrop is definitely there and comes up as characters discuss their past.

In this chapter: Aleksander struggles to share his secrets with Alina until he finds her upset and needing him.

Recommended listening: Lady A "Need You Now"

Chapter 15

They went on that way for a couple of days. Alina spent most of her time with the tracker. It tore Aleksander up but he permitted it for her. Most of Aleksander’s time was spent handling details of the war, receiving intelligence reports, and managing Ravka. Keeping everyone alive kept him focused.

It was the evenings he spent alone that were driving him mad. He kept thinking of Alina’s desire to be fully honest with each other and Fedyor’s words of the importance of knowing and accepting a partner wholly, even with flaws. He had always been a strategist, always played through all scenarios in his head a thousand times until he arrived at one he liked. No matter what scenario he envisioned with Alina, none of them ever turned out as he desired. He desperately longed for the kind of love and acceptance that Alina called for. There had been so many years alone where he had yearned for someone to share things with. However, every time he tried to plan the discussion of one of his secrets, it all went to hell quickly. He had even spent one evening writing it all out for her in the hopes that would help him solidify his thoughts. It hadn’t, and he’d burned it all as he realized how beyond stupid it would be to give her such information in writing.

The problem, he realized, was that he could eloquently justify every decision he had made, but no matter how he poured his heart out into explaining it all, none of that would make the truth any less horrible. Marie was dead--that knowledge would hurt Alina, and he just couldn’t stand the idea of her experiencing all that pain. Genya was his spy--without the centuries of seeing Grisha persecuted to understand what it meant if they lost this war, without seeing the king’s ineptness firsthand, seeing the battalions they had lost because of inadequate supplies and wasted funds, she would never be able to understand this decision. It was unforgivable to leave Genya in that situation. He knew it was, even if Genya had agreed to stay in it herself. That didn’t mean it wasn’t the necessary decision, too. They weren’t mutually exclusive, but Alina would never be able to grasp that. He had a way to potentially take control of her power and use it against her will--would she ever believe he didn’t intend to use it? Was that even really true? He had always hated the idea and told everyone they would not be using it, but deep down he had always known it was the back-up plan. Could he even say he didn’t intend to use it if he knew there were circumstances where he would? All the thoughts swirled in his head and threatened to take him past his breaking point. And then she would be there to help him sleep and somehow it was enough to get him through the next day.

He was stuck, and he didn’t see a way out of this pattern. He couldn’t stop thinking of ways to try to explain things to her. He needed her. His desire for her to actually accept him was overwhelming. But how could she? As he imagined trying to explain things to her, he saw things through her eyes. It was a fresh perspective, and what he saw was horrifying. It all caused him horrible guilt, and, yet, he knew he would make the same decisions again. Over the centuries, he had become numb to accepting the small pains to prevent the true horrors. Alina had reignited emotion inside him, and suddenly everything was raw again.

Aleksander looked at the clock and groaned. It would still be several hours before Alina would visit his chambers to help him sleep. He could not take another night of tearing himself apart while trying to come up with words to help Alina understand how the murder and torture of Grisha over the centuries had forced him to make harder and harder choices. He should get up and do something productive, something, anything to keep his mind active. The library might be a good idea. He thought he had most of the good sources on the Stag in his chambers, but there could still be some good books with more information on relics in general that he and David had not yet read that could at least keep his mind engaged. There was the added bonus that the library reminded him of happier times with Alina. He had never seen someone smile so broadly at books. The memory of stolen kisses between the shelves brought a smile to his face.

Decision made, Aleksander strode to the library. He froze when he saw Ivan hovering near an alcove. Ivan was supposed to be guarding Alina. Aleksander raised an eyebrow, and Ivan gestured with his chin toward the alcove. Years of working together made a silent exchange possible. Alina was in the alcove, and Ivan thought Aleksander should go in there.

“Alina,” Aleksander gasped as he took in her appearance. In her nightgown and robe, she was disheveled, hair a mess, with tears in her eyes.

She desperately tried to wipe the tears away when she saw him. “Aleksander.”

“You’re crying,” he whispered as he closed the distance between them.

“It’s nothing. I’m just tired.”

He reached out and tilted her chin until she met his eyes. “You never let me get away with that line.”

The tears started to fall again. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her to his chest. To his surprise, she started sobbing. He tentatively sent his power through to her. It caressed against hers and begged for a response. This time, she let the connection flow between them. Emotions echoed back and forth with the familiar comfort of each other. She was sad, confused, scared. He was concerned. He made sure to let her feel his love for her, whether she wanted it or not.

“I missed this,” she whispered after a long while.

He blinked. Didn’t she know she was in control of that? He constantly longed for the connection with her. She was the one who decided when they were allowed to have this. “I missed you.”

She sighed and finally let go of the stress in her. In their bond, she pulled for his comfort.

“Did he hurt you?” It was a quiet question, but there was a clear threat in his tone. If the tracker had harmed her, there was nothing that would stop him from enjoying that man’s death.

“No,” she responded quickly. “It’s nothing like that.”

“Are things not going the way you want with the tracker?” He tried not to enjoy that idea. Alina was hurting. That was bad even if it would result in the tracker being out of the picture.

“You’ll be relieved to know that we’ve realized what we are to each other and it’s family. I tried to kiss him. It was awful. So awful, Aleksander.” She made a face and then gave a soft little laugh. “I do love him, but that felt so wrong, and I realized it’s because he’s like my brother.”

“That is not why you are crying, though.” He could tell. He couldn’t let himself become distracted by the jealousy he felt at the idea of the tracker’s lips on hers, even if it was awful as she said. She was comfortable with the decision that the relationship with the tracker was not romantic. He might take more joy in that, but he could not because something else was devastating her. “Whatever it is, you know you can tell me.”

“I’m afraid it will upset you.”

Because the tracker had actually hurt her? Because she was going to say something against Aleksander? Something to break his heart? “I can take it.” He kissed the top of her forehead. “If I somehow found a way to talk to you about the Fold, you can share this with me.”

She looked up at him with uncertainty in her eyes. “I can’t. You’ll hurt him or ... lock him in the dungeons.”

So this was about the tracker. He might very much like to kill, mame, or at least imprison the tracker for whatever she was about to say next, but he knew she wouldn’t tell him unless he agreed not to hurt that idiot and she could feel that he meant it. He took her hand in his so she could get a strong read of his emotions. “I promise I won’t hurt him without your permission.” That, at least, he could agree to. He’d just convince her to let him kill the tracker if that was called for.

Unable to look him in the eye as she spoke, she focused her gaze on the floor and whispered. “He wants us to run away and hide. He has a whole plan. I tried to explain how I can’t do that. I can’t hide my power. I told him how sick it used to make me. I didn’t understand what was causing it at the time, but now I do and I can’t go back to not being able to eat or sleep, to feeling so exhausted constantly. Nadia told me some stories of Grisha who tried to suppress their powers and got seriously ill. But he just keeps saying it will be fine just for a little while.”

Aleksander tried not to react to the news that the tracker was trying to escape with her, but Alina could probably feel his response. Anger was there, of course, but more than anything it triggered his protective instincts. He swallowed as he tried to push away any concerns of the tracker stealing her out of his safe space in the Little Palace. That wasn’t why Alina had told him or what she was asking for his help with. “He doesn’t accept you as you are, but it’s only because he doesn’t understand you. What we are is impossible for him to comprehend.”

She leaned against his chest so he could wrap his arms back around her. “He keeps saying things against Grisha. Not against me, he says not me, but … I don’t even think he realizes he’s doing it half the time. ‘We can’t trust her, she’s Grisha.’ ‘Those people always have tricks up their sleeves.’ Please don’t be mad at him. He isn’t trying to hurt me, but it does.”

“Prejudice against our kind is something learned at an early age. It’s so ingrained in Ravkan society, worse so in other countries, he probably does not realize that it is hate he is speaking.” He took a deep breath. “I’m not trying to defend or slander him. It’s the truth you need to hear, Alina. He is otkazat’sya. You are Grisha. They have always hated our kind. Fight as we may to be accepted, we never are.”

“I’m tired of feeling so … foreign … other.” She sighed.

“Do you feel like that here at the Little Palace? When you are with me?”

“No, and when he says things like that … I … It’s stupid. I’m so stupid.”

She knew he couldn’t stand for her to put herself down, but he was trying to get her to open up and let all her feelings out, so he didn’t correct her. “Tell me. All of it.”

“I’m a mess, Aleksander. I’m such a mess.”

“You hold me together when I am a mess. I can do the same for you.”

“When he says things that hurt me, all I want is you. I miss you. I miss our connection. I find I can’t breathe when I’m not with you. There’s just this tightness in my chest that won’t go away. I long to reach out to our bond.”

“And that’s a bad thing? Maybe when he puts you down, you subconsciously reach for the only person who has ever made you feel like you are enough and worthy of being loved. I wanted to give that to you, Alina.”

“I’m so scared, Aleksander. I’m in here crying because I need you and I’m so scared to need you!”

“You have taught me it’s okay to need you. It’s okay to need acceptance and love, Alina. I offer those.”

“How can I need you if I don’t even know if I trust you?” Her voice cracked.

Aleksander sucked in a breath at the pain those words caused. “Because of what Baghra said?”

She nodded into his chest. “And the manipulation. If I didn’t know about the letters, what else don’t I know? What else are you doing to manipulate me? At times I think I am strong enough and I can tell when you are lying to me, so that will be enough for me to be able to stay in control of things with you. Other times I’m terrified that I’m still falling for you and I will end up your slave. I realize I’m not in control of anything. I don’t feel whole unless I’m with you! When I’m with Mal, I am constantly thinking of you. I thought that if I gave myself some space, I could separate from that and sort things out, but it’s only worse. It takes all my strength not to run to your rooms because I need you.”

He wanted to reassure her that he was worthy of her trust, but he wasn’t sure that was even true. Wasn’t he just a bit earlier going through the list of all the secrets he had kept from her? He hadn’t managed to confide any of them to her or even come up with a plan of how he could. “There’s so much you don’t know,” he admitted. “It terrifies me, too. Trying to find a way to share it all with you is destroying me.” It was the full truth for once. There were horrible secrets there. He did not want to be manipulating her. He truly did want her to know all of it now, but he wanted her to understand it all too. Figuring out how to make that happen was eating him alive. He focused on those feelings and opened their bond fully so she can know the truth of that. “I need you. I fear if I use the wrong words, you will leave me, and I will not survive.”

“So … we both are driving ourselves mad with self doubt and worry and the pain of being apart. What do we even do with that?”

“If I had come up with a solution, I would not still be tearing myself apart trying to figure it out.” He sighed at the familiar ache in his chest. “Do you … Do you want to just take a break from … trying to figure everything out? My only solace in life is you. If I am your only respite, can we not just give ourselves a night to have that?” He needed a break, and she needed his comfort. They both were in so much pain from trying to survive alone.

“I’d like that,” she admitted, finally looking up into his eyes.

Aleksander reached out his hand and cupped her cheek. She leaned into his touch, and the clenching in his chest finally relaxed. She wanted his comfort. He wasn’t quite sure what a break would look like to her. Would she just want to sit and read in the library? Hold each other perhaps?

Tentatively, he leaned forward to kiss her. Her lips parted, and her body arched into him as if she could not get enough of his touch. He was shocked at the flood of desire that she released through their bond. There was no doubt that she wanted more.

As much as he longed to make mad love to her right there in the bookshelves even with Ivan only an aisle away, it didn’t feel quite right to dive straight into ripping off her clothes. Their relationship was awkward and uncertain at the moment. They needed cuddles and contact and warmth before he reminded her what it felt like to have her body worshipped. An idea occurred to him. “Do you want to take a bath together?”

She smiled. “Yes, please.”

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Author Notes: I wrote this chapter a dozen times and deleted them all. Every attempt at writing Aleksander come clean was ridiculously bad. So I started writing about him feeling that way, and Lady A's "Need You Now" came on my station and inspired me. Aleksander was a mess of guilt, self-doubt, and fear until Alina needed him, and then the story just clicked and was so easy to write. All of the emotions felt right once he realized she needed him. He doesn't need to be perfect for her. He needs to be what she needs, and he can be that, even with the dark past. This version felt genuine to the characters, including Alina and Mal. Alina's future with Mal was miserable. I wanted to let her realize 'hey, I don't like this' and choose something else for herself.